Budget cuts to hit most needy the hardest

MEDICAL card holders, schoolchildren and old-age pensioners are the sectors to be hardest hit in the budget in a few weeks’ time.

 

So we are told. You have to take a lot of these pre-budget leaks with a grain of salt. However, I know from experience that there is always more than a grain of truth in what is leaked to the press in the weeks before a budget is announced in the Dáil.

Those leaks are supplied in an effort to “soften-up” the electorate. So that if, for example, a government wants to put an extra 5c on the price of a litre of petrol, they will “leak” that they are going to increase the price of petrol by 10c. Then, on budget day, instead of being angry at an unexpected increase of 10c, the public will actually be relieved that they are going to be hit by an increase of only 5c on the price of a litre of petrol. The same goes for other tax increases or cut-backs in public services.

Officially, the Government says nothing about specific changes to be made in the budget. Those leaks are by way of hints to favoured reporters and, of course, no leaking minister is ever named in public.
Anyway, we can expect a really tough budget in early December. That much we do know. What we do not know is where exactly the axe will fall.

All the experts – along with “leaking” anonymous Government ministers – are predicting that pensioners will be targeted this time.

There is not expected to be a cut in old-age pensions. A Government did that once, nearly 90 years ago, and it is still talked about. So it would be a very foolish Government that would try that again.

Hitting old-age pensioners is one of the last things any Government will attempt. One of the main reasons why so many of their loyal supporters turned against Fianna Fáil at the last election was their decision to end the automatic right to a medical card on reaching the age of 70.

Fianna Fáil TDs were afraid to show their faces in public after tens of thousands of angry pensioners descended on the Dáil in late 2008 to protest against being deprived of what they had come to regard as a basic right on reaching old age.

There is also the fact that old people are more inclined to vote than are their children or their grandchildren. So any effort to take away benefits that have been granted to them over the years will be strongly resisted.

Some of those benefits include free travel, free television licences and free telephone rental. There have been strong indications in recent months that some, if not all, of these benefits will be curtailed in the budget.

The most important of these concessions to senior citizens is probably the right to free travel on public transport. Every person, on reaching the age of 66, is entitled to this little perk, no matter what their income.

It is now widely predicted that this right will be means’ tested in future. We have no way of knowing yet for sure how severe the means’ test will be. Perhaps the benefit will be confined to those elderly people who have a medical card. Perhaps the medical card will be further restricted, thus cutting off a huge number of elderly people who were entitled to free travel prior to now.

Or the Government might decide to restrict free travel to off-peak hours. The Government might even decide not to touch the free travel but instead do away with the free television licence or the free telephone rental. I imagine we will have a better idea as budget day draws nearer.

We are also told that Education Minister Ruairí Quinn will have to cut back spending on schools by up to €100 million next year. That, of course, will mean fewer teachers and bigger classes. You can take it for granted that the schools to be hardest hit will be those in poor and otherwise deprived areas. That is because parents in those areas are least likely to be able to put their hands in their pockets and help out in the running of local schools and colleges.

No matter what cut-backs in spending are announced, they always hit the most needy the hardest because it is those people who are most dependent on the State and on the services provided by the State.

However, there is one group who depend on the State but you hear no talk of them being hit by the budget. I am talking, of course, about the politicians who have been spoiled by this State for generations. They are still earning salaries that are at least three times the average wage. They are paid lavish expenses for merely turning up for work and they are paid pensions that are the envy of the rest of the world.

It is time the people shouted stop to these fat cat politicians. We can no longer afford to pay those huge sums to those people. An ordinary backbench TD is paid almost €100,000 a year as a basic salary. That does not include the expenses he or she is paid, along with all the other perks.

These are the people who are going to decide that thousands of old-age pensioners are no longer entitled to free travel or a free medical card.

How can politicians who are paid big money for every mile they travel begin to understand the hardship that will be imposed on old-age pensioners deprived of their right to free travel at the end of their days?