Madam, – As the Government announces budget 2011, I want to share an example of the type of feedback we at National Council for the Blind of Ireland have been receiving from blind and visually impaired people about the impact cuts to welfare payments have on people in the community.
It is easy in the overwhelming scale of financial difficulties the country faces to overlook the profound impact further cuts will have on the most vulnerable. Following is an extract from a letter I recently received from a blind and wheelchair-bound man which highlights the human impact which the cuts to be announced today will deepen.
“Life is becoming unbearable. I have nothing to look forward to but penurious frustration. Each day I have to listen to “specialists” and “experts” who earn more in a year than I can ever hope to earn in my lifetime, who say that the country’s ills can best be solved by further reductions in the penurious pittance I receive.
“I have feelings of worthlessness and can do nothing about them. I could write to politicians who may or may not reply and who in general are too conceited to listen. The killing part is the fear that things will only get worse.”
Politicians must listen more closely to vulnerable people and truly realise what the budget means for them. It should not be the most vulnerable in the society who pay for the reckless errors of the banking elite. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I am a self-employed professional person. If I do not work, I do not earn an income. I do not get half days off work, paid for by an employer. I pay my taxes on time. I have never taken a tax break incentive of any kind. In the past, I paid property tax on my home when in reality it was owned by a building society.
Why am I – and so many others in my position – about to be screwed (I wanted to use another word) to pay for the profligacy of builders, bankers, and our current Government? – Yours, etc,