High Quality Comments

A selection of high-quality comments, voicing a variety of opinions and experiences.
 

Household charge:

 - Lot of hostility towards landlords here. Let me explain a few things. I worked as a barman for about 10 years until 89 when I bought the block of flats I was living in using a loan and rented them out. I later became a shopkeeper and a milkman, all the while paying my mortgages and putting a bit away - when it became possible and prudent, I would buy another house. Eventually, I was making enough income through rent to quit my job and concentrate on being a landlord fulltime. I expanded my business during the boom (though not to the extent that I left myself vulnerable, which is why while I am struggling at the moment, I'm still making enough to stay solvent) and my work hours if anything, have increased, although I enjoy this work more than what I was previously doing. I've always paid my tax and dealt with rent and tenants fairly - since it's a full time job if there is a problem from a break in to a blocked toilet, I'm generally there within the h our. The tax I have paid amounts to the order of millions cumulatively. I employ 3 tradesmen (2 part-time, 1 full-time), again, above board. 

I don't see anything wrong with the way I make my living. I did well out of the boom, it is true, however I took the risk of a large mortgage in my 20's and spent money earned through hard graft behind the bar for nearly a decade, investing in property at a pre-boom time when nobody was, and never operated as one of the cowboys the media focuses on. While that investment paid off, I still work long hours and extremely hard - I take pride in my work and look after my tenants to the best of my ability. However, the amount of hostility I have come across from Irish people towards me and people like me is ridiculous. 

 - You won’t get a bill because the charge is a Statute. People need to understand this: A Statute is a legislated rule of society given the force of law by the consent of the governed.”(Black’s Law Dictionary 4th edition). Who are those it governs? Us, the public. This household charge is a Statute, otherwise known as an Act of Government and only carries the force of law upon you if you consent to it which means that you are legally obliged to pay if you consent or in other words go on to householdcharge.ie and register. Your silence and inaction will also give the appearance of no consent. If you do not consent, a Statute cannot affect you in any way whatsoever. The courts know this and the last thing they will do is tell you. In fact they will hide this from you at every opportunity they can. On the other hand, if you tell them, they will accept it because they know it is actually true. According to the above definitions a statutory instrument is a contract. If you register for this “charge” you are consenting to this statute ie: signing the contract. This is why the Government are ASKING the people to register and not just billing.

 -  I know that there is little point in saying this to this audience, but the form of government that we have is that the people give their consent to the government for any statutes produced in the term of that government at the time of the general election. 

Unless we want to discard the parliamentary democracy, we don't have any right to pick and choose the statutes we like. There are quite a number I'd like to ignore, but I accept that I live in a civil society.

 

Referendum on Fiscal Compact (conversation between readers):

With a no vote the worse will be even worse off. We will have access to very little funding to try get rid of the IMF by next year and it will push us into a second bailout, which without any access to funds, could well lead to a default which we can't afford.

  - Absolute rubbish and you know it!!!

  - I’m open minded here Mickey, why do you say what he said is rubbish??

  - I want to vote No but if it's a No result what then? What's Plan B? So far I've heard no logical alternative from the No campaign.

  - Paul, A no result in the Referendum Vote will not make a blind bit of difference to the Treaty as they only need 12 out of 27 countries to ratify it. But i will be voting NO to show our so called leaders that we ain't going to take this crap anymore. And hopefully it will be the cause of a split in the coalition and there will be a call for a general election.

  - And then what??

  - Plan B is now under construction. Enda Kenny will earn his wages this month...Well nearly..I have complete faith in the government to lie swindle and scaremonger over the next few weeks. At the end we will vote no because people want change even if it means we are out on our own for a while. Sure beats 20 years or more of austerity. FG/LB your days are numbered. You have strengthened Irish peoples resolve to draw a line in the sand and get rid of the social cancer which you and your like represent!

  - Many people have questioned why ordinary Irish people haven't taken to the streets in mass protests against Government austerity and the answer is very simple. The average Irishman and woman who works hard to feed a family, or is searching desperately for work, and whose morale is taking a pounding will not take to the streets to walk under or with a Sinn Fein banner, a United Left banner, a people before profit banner, a trade union banner … 

All of these groups come together whenever there is a whiff of anything to shout against and the rest of us don't want to be seen near them. 

I will wait to read the treaty details and make my mind up. 

Tax rates:

 - Why do people keep on about people on 100k a year? They pay 33k a year in tax and around another 10k in Vat on transactions. Keeping on the offensive against them scares them and what ever they have left after tax is going in the bank. 20 Euro in a bank after one year is worth 20.20 Euro. Encourage them to spend by ensuring that they won’t be attacked and they will spend. 20 Euro changing hands every week for a year is worth 1000 Euro to the economy. If someone on 100k has 20k in disposable income in a year then thats worth alot of money to the economy IF and ONLY IF they chose to spend it. The truth is that most well paid people (up to a limit) are hard workers and deserver to be paid well for their work. 

I get paid well (not quite 100k) and I make an active effort to spend my money locally, often not on the best deal either, and I am sure many others on good wages do the same. If I take a pay cut (not justified since the company I work for is doing well) it will not help the economy, in fact it will hurt it. The difference will just become profit for the company. 

I appreciate peoples anger and wanting others to suffer along side them but, aside from temporarily making people feel better, the long term consequence of blanket calls for cuts is simply less money in the economy and less chance of any recovery.”

 

Ruairi Quinn says it was wrong to cut funding to DEIS schools

  - He didn't get it wrong. I've worked in disadvantaged schools and normal scools. it's a disgrace the amount of money that's thrown at these school when the root and grass problems lie at home. you can throw all the money in the world at it, as we've done for years or just learn to treat everyone equally. the money is wasted because when the kids go home they're badly treated by parents and exposed to social problems that impact the kids so greatly no amount of money can fix!

- I agree to a certain extent, but if we don't try to support and show these children some stable and normal behaviour then we'll fail them; as their parents already do...

- We've tried that for years and years, it's just like our much loved social welfare system. 

i am deemed 'lucky' because i have a job which enables me to have less money after taxes than friends on the dole getting rent paid for. this country needs change we're being taken advantage of by our own people. if i have kids they won't be in a disadvantaged school as i don't live in a DEIS area however I was from one. Would my kids not deserve the same treatment and funding the DEIS scools get? of course they do, we should all be treated equally after all.

 - What is really needed is a change of culture in some of the DEIS areas so that children who try to better their situation are encouraged rather than degraded and accused of getting above themselves or forgetting where they come from. I have a young colleague who is studying to be an accountant at night and tells his "friends" that he is doing overtime as he knows he will be derided to the utmost if he admits what he is doing instead of staying in the minimum wage post he has at the minute.