All the hype over budget. It wasnt bad at all!

JohnnyTodd · 05-12-2011 5:07pm #1

That budget was grand. I was expecting much much worse. Seems like a few cuts here and there but nothing major.

Agreed or am I missing something?

Professey Chin · 05-12-2011 5:08pm

The big part is tomorrow

Dermo · 05-12-2011 5:08pm

JohnnyTodd wrote: »

That budget was grand. I was expecting much much worse. Seems like a few cuts here and there but nothing major.

Agreed or am I missing something?

The rest of the budget is tomorrow. This is only half of it

sensibleken · 05-12-2011 5:09pm

are you from the future?

sensibleken · 05-12-2011 5:11pm

"Cut of six weeks in the cold weather allowance."

what the hell is cold weather allowance. surely everyone in the country could claim that

BunShopVoyeur · 05-12-2011 5:13pm

JohnnyTodd wrote: »

That budget was grand. I was expecting much much worse. Seems like a few cuts here and there but nothing major.

Agreed or am I missing something?

Tune in tomorrow...

washiskin · 05-12-2011 5:13pm

sensibleken wrote: »

"Cut of six weeks in the cold weather allowance."

what the hell is cold weather allowance. surely everyone in the country could claim that

It's the €20 pensioners get per week which barely covers a bag of coal & a bale of briquettes.

silly · 05-12-2011 5:15pm

JohnnyTodd wrote: »

Agreed or am I missing something?

yes, the 2nd day of the budget.

Anyone · 05-12-2011 5:18pm

Today was just the foreplay. Tomorrow we get rode.

The Internet Explorer · 05-12-2011 5:19pm

Easy for yoarghhhh arghhh rabble rabble rabble if you werarghhhhh rabble rabble rabble then you wouldn't bearggghhhhhhhhhhhhh rabble rabble rabble. With the rabble rabble arggghhh and the state the country is argggghhhhh. Rabble rabble rabble. Rabble.

Biggins · 05-12-2011 5:19pm

http://www.budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2012/2012.aspx

ONLY todays lot:

Child Benefit
�� Phase out entitlements to higher rates for the third and
subsequent child over two years
�� Discontinue one-off grants in respect of multiple births

Back to School Clothing and Footwear Allowance
�� Raise age at which a child qualifies from 2 to 4
�� Reduce rates of payment from €305 to €250 and from €200 to
€150

Qualified child increases
�� For new social insurance claimants, standardise entitlement to a
half-rate qualified child increase where spouse/partner has an
income in excess of €400 per week

Jobseeker’s Benefit
�� Base payment entitlement on a 5 day week rather than a six day
week where a person is working for part of a week
�� From 2013, take employment on Sunday into account when
determining the level of entitlement

Farm Assist
�� Amendments to means test

Disability Allowance
�� Increase age of entitlement for new claimants to 18 in line with
other social welfare payments
�� Align rates of payment for new claimants aged 18 to 24 with the
Jobseeker’s Allowance scheme - new rates of €100 for 18 to 21
year olds inclusive and €144 for 22 to 24 year olds inclusive.
�� As a compensatory measure, entitlement to Domiciliary Care
Allowance will be extended to 16 and 17 year olds

Disablement Benefit
�� For new claimants, remove entitlement to disablement benefit,
where the level of disability is classified as less than 15 per cent

One Parent Family Payment
�� Entitlement will be restricted to cases where the youngest child is
7 years of age over the period to 2014
�� Discontinue, for new and existing claimants, entitlement to two
qualified child increases (currently €29.80 per week) where a
recipient is also on Community Employment Scheme
�� Reduce – over five years – the earnings disregard from €146.50
to €60 per week, for new and existing claimants and discontinue
the transitional payment where income exceeds €425 per week

Redundancy and Insolvency Scheme
�� Reduce employer rebate from 60% to 15%

Rent Supplement
�� Increase minimum contribution and review rent limits

Mortgage Interest Supplement
�� Increase minimum contribution and further restrict expenditure

Fuel Allowance
�� Reduce fuel season by 6 weeks from 32 to 26 weeks for new and
existing recipients

Community Employment Schemes, Back to Education Allowance and
Jobs Initiative
�� Reduce the training and materials from €1,500 to €500 per
participant per annum and obtain savings from supervisory costs
on Community Employment schemes
�� Reduce the annual cost of education allowance to €300
�� Reduce materials allowance and discontinue payment of training
budget for participants on Department’s Jobs Initiative Scheme.

Household Benefits
�� Reduce expenditure on the electricity/gas allowances

State Pension
�� Provide, for new claimants, new payment rates of State Pensions
where the yearly average number of contributions and credits is
less than 48 contributions (from September 2012)
�� Increase the minimum number of contributions required to qualify
for a Widow/er’s Contributory Pension from 156 to 520 in July
2013

Concurrent Payments
�� Discontinue entitlement, for certain new claimants, to concurrent
receipt of an additional half-rate of Jobseeker’s Benefit or Illness
Benefit
�� Phase out – over three years – entitlement to Community
Employment payment and another DSP payment

Late Claims
�� Reduce statutory backdating for late claims from 12 to 6 months
for full entitlement and remove proportionate provision.

Fraud and Control Measures
�� Enhance fraud and control activity

Other Measures
�� Reductions through administrative budget; means testing
rationalisation; treatment benefit and other miscellaneous
measures

Source: http://www.budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2012/2012.aspx

...And thats a summary. There's more. See PDF's at above link.

My name is URL · 05-12-2011 5:20pm

There's another five years of harshly austere budgets to come, let alone the rest of this years!

Biggins · 05-12-2011 5:21pm

My name is URL wrote: »

There's another five years of harshly austere budgets to come, let alone the rest of this years!

Yep.

sensibleken · 05-12-2011 5:23pm

^^ all seems fairly reasonable.

therell be those kicking up a fuss whos job it is to kick up a fuss but realistically those proposals seem fair enough.

whats the story, is that the cuts bit done and tomorrow is the taxes bit?

Chuck Stone · 05-12-2011 5:26pm

washiskin wrote: »

It's the €20 pensioners get per week which barely covers a bag of coal & a bale of briquettes.

People on the state pension are entitled to have their houses insulated aren't they though?

So that would mitigate the fuel allowance cuts.

I cajoled my parents (seniors) into getting their house insulated and it made a huge difference and they're using a hell of a lot less gas.

Vicxas · 05-12-2011 5:26pm

Roll on tomorrow..... we're gonna get bummed

Biggins · 05-12-2011 5:26pm

sensibleken wrote: »

...whats the story, is that the cuts bit done and tomorrow is the taxes bit?

Correct.

However it was not all cuts.

On December 1st FG/Labour allowed a 17% increase in their travel expenses, a 23% increase in their office expenditure (others only got 15% increase).
This was all mentioned (FF speaker) in the Dail a while ago along with a lot more increases to TD's in power.

Nice eh?

stimpson · 05-12-2011 5:27pm

Can anyone decode this for me?

Qualified child increases
�� For new social insurance claimants, standardise entitlement to a
half-rate qualified child increase where spouse/partner has an
income in excess of €400 per week

smash · 05-12-2011 5:28pm

Vicxas wrote: »

Roll on tomorrow..... we're gonna get bummed

Sounds like you're well up for it though.

Lord Trollington · 05-12-2011 5:29pm

My name is URL wrote: »

There's another five years of harshly austere budgets to come, let alone the rest of this years!

We're already to the bone as it is. Cant imagine what services will be like in 5 years time.

Biggins · 05-12-2011 5:31pm

stimpson wrote: »

Can anyone decode this for me?

Qualified child increases
�� For new social insurance claimants, standardise entitlement to a
half-rate qualified child increase where spouse/partner has an
income in excess of €400 per week

Not sure myself but thats how it appears on page 24 of this document:

APOLOGIES - CORRECTED LINK: http://www.budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2012/Documents/CER%20-%20Estimates%20Final%20Part%202.pdf

The CLEAR cut numbers are shown on page 28 onwards.

donalg1 · 05-12-2011 5:31pm

Chuck Stone wrote: »

People on the state pension are entitled to have their houses insulated aren't they though?

So that would mitigate the fuel allowance cuts.

I cajoled my parents (seniors) into getting their house insulated and it made a huge difference and they're using a hell of a lot less gas.

Think they have to pay a bit towards the grant though so its not completely free unless they manage to get it from the council under the Housing Aid grant, think they get referred to the SEI alot of the time as the Council got no money for this and tend to focus on more urgent aspects of the Housing Grants

ilovesleep · 05-12-2011 5:33pm

Biggins wrote: »

Correct.

However it was not all cuts.

On December 1st FG/Labour allowed a 17% increase in their travel expenses, a 23% increase in their office expenditure (others only got 15% increase).
This was all mentioned (FF speaker) in the Dail a while ago along with a lot more increases to TD's in power.

Nice eh?

Jesus fcuking holy fcuking christ on a fcuking bike!
Is there anything that will stop this carry on at all?

Sure hit disabed teenagers to keep their pockets fuller. What a fcuking insult.

leonidas83 · 05-12-2011 5:33pm

Biggins wrote: »

Correct.

However it was not all cuts.

On December 1st FG/Labour allowed a 17% increase in their travel expenses, a 23% increase in their office expenditure (others only got 15% increase).
This was all mentioned (FF speaker) in the Dail a while ago along with a lot more increases to TD's in power.

Nice eh?

People dont care anymore and I dont blame them, were all sick of hearing how the politicians are living on a different planet to the rest of us, we know they are taking the piss and have been for many years. There's hardly anything we can do individually and there isnt enough of us collectively that want to do something about it so these guys are just going to carry on robbing the nation blind. So get used to it for the next years and buy some lube

ilovesleep · 05-12-2011 5:34pm

JohnnyTodd wrote: »

That budget was grand. I was expecting much much worse. Seems like a few cuts here and there but nothing major.

Agreed or am I missing something?

Fair - clearly - see above

Richard Hillman · 05-12-2011 5:35pm

In very happy with it so far and think they could have cut more. I'd imagine they will have the "bad" day 1st and a light day for the 2nd. Have the people fear the worse for day 2 only to find it wasn't as bad as it was built up to be. This was the reasoning behind the speech last night.

That_Guy · 05-12-2011 5:35pm

Disability allowance hit.... If they made this announcement and it coincided with an initiative to get those with disabilities into training with the hope of future employment it wouldn't have seemed so bad really.

smash · 05-12-2011 5:37pm

Richard Hillman wrote: »

In very happy with it so far and think they could have cut more. I'd imagine they will have the "bad" day 1st and a light day for the 2nd. Have the people fear the worse for day 2 only to find it wasn't as bad as it was built up to be. This was the reasoning behind the speech last night.

Tomorrow is when we'll really get screwed with stealth taxes.

Biggins · 05-12-2011 5:38pm

smash wrote: »

Tomorrow is when we'll really get screwed with stealth taxes.

Big time.

ilovesleep · 05-12-2011 5:39pm

leonidas83 wrote: »

People dont care anymore and I dont blame them, were all sick of hearing how the politicians are living on a different planet to the rest of us, we know they are taking the piss and have been for many years. There's hardly anything we can do individually and there isnt enough of us collectively that want to do something about it so these guys are just going to carry on robbing the nation blind. So get used to it for the next years and buy some lube

This is a country that I no longer want to live in with the majority having such a way of thinking. This bullsh1t and clear abuse would not happen in any other country and I want to know what makes it acceptable?

leonidas83 · 05-12-2011 5:43pm

ilovesleep wrote: »

This is a country that I no longer want to live in with the majority having such a way of thinking. This bullsh1t and clear abuse would not happen in any other country and I want to know what makes it acceptable?

Happens in alot of countries, the difference with ours and the rest is that we've found out how out lazy and apathetic we really are

All the hype over budget. It wasnt bad at all!

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