1 in 3 working age adults living alone are on or below the poverty line – and no, not third world levels of poverty you prick - but Irish poverty. That’s almost a 10% jump since 2008 … what’s driving that?
20 % of over 65s living alone are in poverty - a jump of 9% since 2008.
There’s been a 6% rise in rents nationally since last year - and a staggering 70% since 2008.
Ireland is the 5th most expensive place to live in the EU — We’ve just seen a spike in inflation to 1.4 %, not less than 1% , the highest since April when it was at 1.7% - all coming on goods, services, utilities, rents …
But wages have seen a rise too over the last year---- but generally only those (couples) earning over 40k are seeing the benefits— social welfare payments havent budged at all and the government has paid lip service to minimum wage … so there’s a very clear trend there.
You could have just said the cost of accommodation, either renting or owning, is the highest in Europe. The cost of maintaining a home in Ireland is 60% higher than the European average. That’s the issue that has to be tackled, short term give relief in the form of a mortgage benefit or a rent benefit, and longer term obviously build lots of affordable houses and apartments.
Specifically on wages, the fact that hourly wages are relatively high is misleading. The only thing that matters is disposable income and Ireland is not doing very well there, one reason why so many are struggling to make ends meet. The average disposable income per capita for OECD countries is ~$33K, Ireland is $25K even though Ireland’s cost of living is as high or higher than countries at or above the average, especially accomodation.
Income taxes are way too high in Ireland to fund a bloated inefficient government. Nobody is suggesting that the genuinely poor, elderly, sick, etc. should not be looked after, the issue is the cost associated with it. Between social welfare and health care Ireland spends over 40 billion a year, that’s 8K for every man, woman and child in the country. That’s simply insane.
Sinn Fein on the rise . I’d say we are due a “Gerry Adams refuses to deny picking his hole in 1969” type hea ddliner in the Sunday Indo followed up by some misery porn 197os horror stories from Joe Duffy. Maria Cahill and that angry Stack cunt to be dusted down and wheeled out for the final push.
I can’t think why but he hasn’t appeared since he claimed there was only 52 homeless people in Dublin and that Ireland had the biggest number of immigrants in Europe.
My main concern regarding this election is the lack of Limerick politicians actually being in the front bench of any sort of a coalition government. I was never a Michael Noonan fan, but his influence did benefit Limerick when he was the minister of finance. Quinlivan is competent to be fair but SF will have to wait 4 years by the looks of it.
Willie O’Dea is a parody,Joan Burton is weak politically and Niall Collins is lightweight as well. Then you’ve the FG lad who married a girl from Fair City and has done nothing else of note. Ffs.
When you compare that to Cark who are our main rivals from a regional perspective, we’re fucked politically for the next 4 years at least unfortunately.
