Budget needs to give us all a boost

THERE is serious apathy in the country at the moment with severe Government fatigue setting in.

After two years of Covid hell followed by the war in Ukraine and now the cost of living crisis people are sick to the teeth at the same old faces leading the country.

We also more or less have the same Fine Gael ministers in power for well over a decade and with Leo Vardakar set to become Taoiseach for a second time in December, it feels as if we are listening to the same voices over and over again.

As we await what promises to be a giveaway Budget this afternoon the truth is yes Ireland has problems particularly the neverending housing crisis but our country is still one of the best places in the world to live in.

If you want to work there are jobs galore – if you are on social welfare you will receive more than most other states.

But this is all irrelevant if you are lying in your bed awake at night wondering how the hell you are going to pay the mortgage, the rent or the bills.

Will the electricity be sky high this month? Have we used too much gas? Have we the money for coal to light the fire? Is there enough cash left to put food on the table?

I know what it is like because I have been there. I remember the currency crisis in the early nineties when interest rates hit 18%-19%. For two hard woeful years we struggled to make ends meet.

The two of us were working and we had two kids but we hadn’t a penny to spare.

The country then was a different place and had very little money to help the people. We were also all taxed to the hilt.

Most people didn’t whinge, we just knuckled down and got on with it. We stupidly did our protesting on the kitchen table not on the streets.

Last Saturday thousands of people took to the streets in Dublin to let the Government know they are not happy and need help. Fair play to each and everyone of them.

Critics say it was full of the usual “Lefties” and students and represented only .05% of the population but so what. I admire each and everyone of them because they are prepared to march for what they believe in.

There is absolutely no doubt many people are struggling and hurting, and need some Government help.

The fact that a Government will today give away a record

€10billion to help our people is unheard of in my lifetime.

I hope we see energy credits to help families and businesses pay their energy costs.

I hope from now on you go on the higher rate of tax at €40,000 instead of €36,800 which I always felt was wrong.

I hope our old age pensioners and young families crippled with childcare costs are looked after.

There will also I hope be an increase for those on social welfare.

The politicians in this country have always been very good at paying themselves and looking after the fatcat bankers.

This will be Micheal Martin’s final Budget as Taoiseach, and probably Paschal Donohue’s as Minister for Finance.

They both have a ready made chance now to deliver one of the great Budgets in history to help the Irish people. Let’s hope they don’t blow it.

Unless there is a sizable reshuffle in the Cabinet come December the public’s fatigue with the Government will continue and voters will run into the arms of Sinn Fein.

Mary Lou Mcdonald’s time is coming and then we will see what she

will do.

One of Veronica Guerin’s killer’s Brian Meehan, is thankfully not being freed any time soon.

He has served over 22 years of a life sentence for her

brutal murder and is currently being detained at Shelton Abbey open prison. The Parole Board has so far not given him a release date after objections from her family and rightly so.

Meehan, inset, is currently 55 years of age.

Why should he be freed in middle

age and the late great journalist is lying in a cold grave.

My view is the likes of Meehan should do 30 years before he is let back on the streets.

If it was in America life would mean life.