Sir, – I wish to register my complete frustration at the cuts announced to postgraduate funding in the Budget. We as a nation hear so much about how we must prepare for the future and work to drag this country out of the shambles that self-serving and short-sighted politicians have got us into and now we are told that those who wish to proceed to fourth-level education will have to do it on their own.
Is it the Government’s hope that education becomes an elitist pursuit which excludes those who are just in the wrong socio-economic group? And what does this decision say about the Labour Party and the Union of Students in Ireland – both organisations who should have a special interest in speaking out for the educational needs of those who don’t have privileged backgrounds?
The former has abandoned any semblance of its ideological conscience in its desire sit in Government while the latter seem only capable of Pyrrhic victories. What difference does it make if the Student Registration Fee only goes up by €250 if there is no maintenance grant and limited fees support?
People need to realise that there are no services without a fair taxation system which effectively and equitably taxes those who earn multiples of what most people live on. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Budget 2012 proposes a further adverse change to the pupil-teacher ratio in fee-charging secondary schools for the school year 2012/13. Yet again no allowance has been made for the fact that a substantial number of these schools are under Protestant management. This is as a result of arrangements made over 40 years ago on the introduction of the “free” secondary education system.
The State recognised that the system of providing free schools with a Catholic ethos could not be extended in a similar manner to the small and scattered Protestant population seeking a Protestant ethos. The solution was means-tested State grants, administered by the Secondary Education Committee, allowing such children attend fee-paying schools and for this reason these schools were given a separate classification within the Department of Education.
The 2009 budget unilaterally re-classified these schools and gave them an adverse pupil-teacher ratio. The result was that those receiving these grants, only allocated to those on very small incomes, had to face higher fees just to receive the same level of staffing as the rest of the population. A further change in the ratio will put these people at a greater disadvantage and put the very existence of many of these schools in doubt.
An equitable solution, as requested in 2009, must be found in order for the minority Christian churches to continue to make a contribution to the secondary education system of a pluralist Ireland. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – The only truly abhorrent element of this Budget is the cut in overseas development aid. Development money goes to places with no living memory or realistic hope of prosperity. Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin (one of the six vice-presidents of the Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa) has imposed domestic austerity that may cause serious discomfort and anxiety; his cuts to global aid, however, will cause death.
I ask for empathy: it is not such a long time since we were in the grasps of famine – and we know well the scarring that colonisation leaves. Ireland has always punched above its weight with regard to global aid: let our banking reputation rise and fall, but please don’t tamper with what makes us proud to call this place home. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Government members should hang their heads in shame. One-parent families have been cruelly targeted in the Budget, and single parents are consequently being denied the most basic rights in relation both to providing and caring for their families.
First, the Government intends to stop any State support for single parents once their children reach the age of seven. This is obscene and will push many hard-pressed families further into poverty, and denies the right of the single parent to be an at-home parent.
Second, it has hatched a most heinous plan for the future of working single parents, so that within a few years single parents will only be able to earn a mere 60 euro a week without affecting their lone parent allowance.
Given that the vast majority of single parents are women, would it be a step too far to accuse the Government of misogyny? These developments will impact severely upon the single mother, in relation to her career, her personal development and how she can contribute to society. Nor will she be supported in being an at-home mother – henceforth the role of the at-home mother shall be the privilege of the married woman alone. This will have a profound impact on women’s rights and choices, and crucially on their role as mothers. The clear message here is that the mother who is living independently of a man is to be targeted, and practically cast out by society.
Through its unjust policies, this Government will create a two-tiered motherhood – the married and the unmarried. I am not a single mother, but I am a mother.
I call on the women of Ireland to stand in solidarity with all mothers, be they married or unmarried, and rise up against this oppressive budgetary decision. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Were Messrs Kenny, Gilmore and Howlin asked to re-write Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar would the line instead run “The fault dear Brutus, lies not in ourselves, but in our stars”? For no way else could something that Enda Kenny told us in his speech on Sunday night was not “our fault” have cost us quite so much. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Kindly let me express my outrage at the devastation caused to families and older people by this Government.
Pre-election promises discarded with disdain, unfeeling beggaring of our senior citizens through the myriad of stealth taxes justified by the hypocritical mantra of “we didn’t touch your pensions”. The Labour Party’s avowed philosophy of fairness, redistribution of wealth, concern for the dependent in our society has been cynically overturned by the betrayal of our school pupils, second-level students and all those aspiring to further /higher education. Where are all the radical socialists now? Doubtless seduced by the trappings of ministerial grandiosity, smug in the receipt of exorbitant “expenses” , patronising the powerless.
Was it for this, James Connolly . . .? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – I didn’t hear how many obscenely-paid senior public servants are to be cut. I heard nothing about cutting the waste incurred by virtually every Government department. I also missed how many more useless, self-serving quangos are to be cut. And I heard nothing about stopping the hiring of grossly overpaid government advisers.
All I heard concerned kicking the poor now that they are on their knees!
Did I miss parts of the speech? Or has the Labour Party now become extreme right-wing like Fine Gael? – Yours, etc,