Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

The Telephone Allowance ,

  • 15-05-2010 6:43pm
    #1
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭


    This is a subsidy paid by the taxpayer...mainly but not exclusively to eircom.

    The taxpayer now pays for at least 1 out of 4 residential lines and the % is increasing inexorably.

    These are the totals across telephone lines, cable and mobile.

    http://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2009-11-24.1804.0&s=%22telephone+allowance%22#g1806.0.r
    Customer Numbers (cost)
    2004 297,967 (€86m)
    2005 311,353 (€89m)
    2006     318,828 (€90m)
    2007 327,336 (€98m)
    2008     351,924 (€112m)

    If the rapid jump in 2008 was replicated last year it is now (at a GUESS)

    2010 May 381,000 (€126m)

    of whom

    http://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2010-02-16.1968.0

    36,000 get the subsidy for a mobile phone not a landline or cable leaving (at GUESS)

    345,000 between telephone and cable of whom I would surmise no more than 15,000 are cable ( pro rata the 60,000 telephony customers they have) .

    This implies that the number of phone lines paid for by the taxpayer is now as high as 330,000 out of around 1.2m residential lines. That is 27% of lines.

    I really must brief O Cuiv on the leverage he.....more than the idiot in communications who does not even have a budget of €126m every year....holds over eircom :D

    I understand from enquiries and a recent reference here that around 50,000 are in receipt of carers allowance nowadays, (three times the number who qualified only 3 years back :eek:) that the carers allowance accounts for a lot of the increase in those qualifying for the telephone allowance.

    Furthermore the carers allowance is OFTEN claimed by a husband for a wife and for a wife by a husband and that household then gets two Telephone Allowances ....like WTF :( Sometimes it is claimed for a kid 'each' by husband and wife, again 2 allowances. :(
    One qualifies for the free phone even if the household income is as high as :eek: €60,000 :eek: per annum as long as someone is doing a spot of 'caring' somewhere.

    A granular breakdown of 2004 to 2007 is available here.

    http://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2009-06-11.382.0&s=%22telephone+allowance%22#g386.0.r


Advertisement