Widening of the tax band and help for renters and bills are the main items by the looks of it.
How will this year's budget affect you?
What exactly do you find funny?
Right well then don't charge these people more for the only way to get from A to B then they pay enough in tax as it is.
Why are you insistent on looking for exceptions?
Listen lets be realistic its fine for a lovely day out where you can control the distance but to get to an actual destination like say the shops and back that could 10k/15k+ in distance in the pissing rain or snow its not really going to happen now is it.
I am not insisting on an exception I am insisting on an alternative being put in place before putting more tax on the only means some people have to get around.
Wait till you hear about raingear.
What extra tax?
Will you give over will the rain gear help when they get tired and cant continue on the journey.
That’s when the eBike comes into it’s own.
I think your argument is fine for one off journeys, but if you work full time and have kids to collect, drop off, shopping to do, home, cook dinner, get kids to bed, prepare for next day etc cycling comes at a huge time cost that many with families don’t have no matter how much they might want to become greener.
The local bus service here gets you to the city centre for 9am, very few people I know actually work in the city centre and the ones that do nurses, guards etc that timetable doesn’t suit them. Most are in industrial estates outside the city centre and start work at 7 or 8 am. I think more can be done with public transport with a bit of creative thinking.
It has been clear for decades (as far back as the 1973 oil crisis) that living in rural Ireland 10/15k away from a major town is not a sustainable way of life and that down the road the day would come that would leave those people with high personal transport costs. The climate crisis in the meantime has made this even more clear. The alternatives have been in place, the warnings have been there, people have not heeded them. In fact, over the years, there have been hysterical protests from the rural communities whenever any proposals to restrict one-off housing were put forward.
And either is your alternative of everyone living in the town or big city, there are not enough houses to do this. Once again we are in the midst of a housing crisis.
There was a census enumerator on Joe Duffy today.
She was shocked at the level of vacancies in Irish rural villages.
Rural Ireland has turned its back on rural Irish settlements, community and economy. They want the McMansion, the driveway, the garage, the high walls the trampoline and swing set, they don't want any overlooking properties, they want it away from everyone else, and they want to externalise all of the many associated costs with this way of life onto the general taxpayer where possible.
It's a massive ignrained cultural problem for rural Ireland that has been allowed to proliferate since the 70s, and when it's pointed out, a lot of them flip the lid.
No those people will continue to need their own cars but will have to pay for that with higher running costs into the future. It's about choices. You choose to live in the middle of nowhere, well then there's a cost to that choice.
Carbon tax, for one...
The reaction to the budget seems to be fairly positive all round. The first one since the finiaical crisis that felt like it gave something meanginful back to middle income earners in my view.
I don't even have kids or that many responsibilities and I cycled 14k a day, each way for work for about 6 months this year and other then losing weight, all it's successfully done is made me consider buying a car and driving it off a cliff.
Cars actively go out of their way to try hurt you. This is undisputed, boyracers who want to impress their mates and dozy fecks who are still asleep behind the wheel. (Not even on country lanes, mind you, big wide roads)
Uphill cycles into strong winds and torrential rain at 6AM isn't very inspiring to anybody. Raingear or not.
Once you're in winter, all of this becomes drastically worse.
Do your day of shopping/work/talking crap then cycle another 14k, see how it works out for you.
Bikes for pensioners is not viable.
In regards to the budget overall; it's just like every other one. A right kick in the chops for anybody doing a day's work.
What do you want? A bus to every one off house in the middle of nowhere?
What about options of housing in the big cities and towns we are currently in the midst of a housing crisis?
Loophole found already!
..
Jaysis, you must be savage craic at parties.
I'd hate to see your reaction to an actual tough budget. Yesterday's was, to all intents and purposes, a giveaway.
Between comments like this and the lad earlier who thought the €500 renters credit was monthly (lol), I swear some folk in this Country expect other taxpayers to pay ALL their bills at this point.
I didn't hear or read anything in the budget about more double payments for social welfare apart from the ones I listed above.
Government acknowledged they have kept money back for further measures as a precaution in the new year, but other than that its just what we've been told for now
I was talking to someone from the Department of Housing recently, and they were saying the same thing. Outside of the main cities, there are huge numbers of vacant properties in towns and villages, where all the services are in walking distance, yet people don't want to live there, and as you say, they want their McMansions and they are not willing to pay a price for this lifestyle.
This is the type of house that is found in every town and village around the country. The vast majority of them are not on the market because nobody wants them, yet they are lying vacant and derelict, waiting for someone to refurbish.
And people complain about high petrol costs living in their McMansions.
Child Benefit in it's current form should be wound down over a set number of years.
To compensate, child dependent increases for those on Working Family Payments, and other associated social welfare payments should be increased in line with reductions to CB.
With this manoeuvre you remove very high earners from receiving CB which they really don't need and thus freeing up funds to be more targeted. They could then probably afford to pay the difference of say 65% between the earnings and the thresholds, instead of the present 60%.
Northern European taxes but getting Southern European services.
And before you say that Ireland is generally a low-tax economy, that is until you look beyond employee taxes and look at stealth taxes.
Yeah so then Brig from down the road can pop out 10 kids like smarties for 5 different daddies and get all the goodies including the house, have her current baby daddy living there and him working gaining off the system and people working hard trying to do things the right way find they cant afford a kid. No you need to rethink the unintended consequences of such actions. there needs to be further emphasis put on Daddy to help raise their offspring
I was being tongue in cheek. You've obviously not paid much attention to the whinging over bus connects Cork or the mccurtain St scheme. Or the failed Patrick St bus gate scheme, lots of investment but Cork doesn't want it
Where in the world is there good public transport 15km from an urban area, bar those located on an inter urban road
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