The December Budget

As the Irish Government prepare to punish pensioners and the most vulnerable people in society, for the sins of the multi-millionaire bankers and property speculators, with crushing cuts in pensions and basic welfare payments we must ask oursleves as a nation why are we allowing this brutality to occur. Brian Cowen who leads the Irish Government and while both Minister for Finance and now as Leader has pursued what can only be described as Biffonian Economics, these are not the economics that one would find in the library books of our great universities, but the economics of men who have become detached from the reality facing ordinary people on a daily basis (Blair syndrom). How can Brian Cowen defend taking 16 Euro per week from a pensioner on 230 Euro per week, a pensioner that has worked for a life time and made a life time of contribution to this State. The dire consequences of such cuts on older and disabled people is beyond the comprehension of a man on a combined income of 400,000 per annum in salary and expenses, chaufeur driven car, subsidised meals in the Dail restaurant, world travel in the government jet and a life style that he would not have achived as a dry as dust accountant, no he had to become a 'public servant' to achive such high office. While Brian Cowen has talked about Government Ministers taking a 10% cut in salary across the board, that 10% is easily of set by a 10% increase in expense claims by the same Ministers, the pensioner or disabled person has no such expense account with which to balance the books. This government has failed in its duty to stand up to the interests of the Bankers and Building Developers/speculators, this government has bailed out the Bankers and Builders with 54 Billion Euro of tax payers money, a sum that this Observer believes is only the deposit on the real bill they have run up, while at the same time this government has brutalised the most vulnerable in society with cuts in rent supplement, cuts in payments to care workers, cuts in salary of our front line staff, cuts in resourses for those most in need. It is a shame on this government that hundreds of people are queuing at soup kitchens in the back streets of Dublin each day as they have been cast out of their jobs, their homes and denied basic care. It is time to say enough is enough, it is time that this government and its decaying green fig leaf were challenged in a real and meaningful way. Industrial action can only be part of that campaign, people must stop pursuing small sectional interests, this campaign must be a united efford by those in the public/private sector, by those who have lost their jobs due to the greed of the corrupt, they who have become marginalised by the black propaganda of Government spin doctors. This government must be replaced with a Government that had no hand in the economic destruction of our country, a government that puts people at the heart of government strategy not spin doctors. Lets stand together and say enough of your bully boy tactics, lets reach out to our neighbour and say we feel your pain, and make a real effort to ensure that this Government is thrown into the dustbin of political history as the government that punished the elderly while supporting the greedy.