Who’s going to help the helpless?

I find it almost impossible to believe some of the proposals to cut public spending that we have been hearing over the past few days.
I accept that the Government has no choice but to make some harsh decisions in the Budget next month. It is almost incredible that a caring minister, as I know Joan Burton to be, could even think about taking more money from the poorest among us so that the wealthiest can continue to live the high life they are used to.
I simply do not believe the Government has plans to reduce child benefit by €10 a month across the board. I heard some people on radio during the weekend say they wouldn’t miss €10 a month. That’s all right for them but there are thousands of families in this country who have to count every penny that comes into the house.
Official Government figures themselves show that 90,000 children in this state are living in consistent poverty. That means that 90,000 children are going to be cold and hungry this Christmas.
I cannot believe that Joan Burton plans to make life even more miserable for those poor kids. That is unless she has changed since she went into Government.
What about that old socialist slogan about taking from each according to his ability and giving to each according to his needs?
I cannot believe that Joan Burton has forgotten that already. I cannot believe she wants to take more from the poorest of the poor. She has done a good job in tackling social welfare poverty. Perhaps she could do more to ensure that social welfare is not paid to those who do not need it. Anything to avoid making life even worse for those who have so little.
We cannot afford to continue paying child benefits to those who do not need them. I don’t care how difficult it might be to tax or means test child benefits, it has to be done to protect the most vulnerable. We have been talking about this for years but have failed to do anything about it.
The Labour Party was put in there to keep an eye on Fine Gael and ensure that the weakest and poorest among us would be protected against the harsh cut-backs in public spending that we have been promised over the next three or four years. But instead of a watchdog, what we seem to have in Labour is a pussycat. That’s if what we are hearing is true. I do not want to believe those things unless and until they are contained in the Budget next month.
I have a friend – a retired top public servant – who has a pension of about €110,000 a year. He has no mortgage, his family are reared and he has only his wife to support. He admits to me that he could live comfortably on half or even one-third of his pension and there are thousands like him all over the state, people who have far more money than they can spend.
Why cannot the Government concentrate on those people as a source of income for the state? Are they too powerful and too privileged to take on? Of course, among them are a number of former taoisigh, several former ministers along with scores of former TDs and senators. Mostly, from Fianna Fáil, but also from Fine Gael, Labour and other small parties. They also include former judges, high-ranking army and garda officers as well as other top public servants. Their salaries were outrageously high; their pensions are an obscenity in a state that cannot afford to look after the most vulnerable. There might be legal problems about reducing those pensions but can they not be taxed to the hilt?
Perhaps I am jumping the gun and the Budget will, after all, be kind to those who need kindness. Nither Joan Burton nor any other Government minister has, at the time of writing, ruled out across the board reductions in child benefit, however.
Fianna Fáil were kicked out of office because they had lost touch with the people and had no idea about the depth of anger that was out there. They had been too long in power.
The present Government are in power for less than nine months. Could they possibly be out of touch already?
I am not ignoring the fact that we are in the depths of an economic crisis the likes of which we have never experienced before. That there are no easy choices to be made in the Budget.
Nor am I ignoring the fact that the Government now has little power and that its hands are tied by accountants and bureaucrats in places like Frankfurt, Berlin and Brussels.
I am arguing that, whatever about Fine Gael – who were never really all that concerned about Garret FitzGerald’s Just Society – Labour must put up a fight for the poor and for the weak. We can still reach targets demanded by Germany without making the poorest suffer the most.
The best way to protect the most vulnerable is to raise income tax, especially in respect of the top earners. However, the Government have already promised that income tax will not be raised in the Budget. I wonder was that another German demand?
I also find it almost incredible that the Government plans to raise VAT from 21% to 23%. The former Minister for Finance, the late Brian Lenihan admitted that when he raised VAT by half a per cent the country lost €700m. Surely we will lose four times that if we raise VAT now or in the near future by an extra two percent. The move will sent shoppers in droves across the border once more and cost thousands of jobs.
There will of course be objections to no matter what the Government does in the Budget. But some of these proposals that have been leaked in one-way or another do sound frightening.