‘I actually understand why people go home and hang themselves’

THESE are the shocking words of a 51-year-old teacher who along with ordinary members of the public expressed their anger and disillusionment concerning the budget directly to Finance Minister Brian Lenihan yesterday.

Speaking on the Today with Pat Kenny Show, schoolteacher Carol O’Byrne, described how she would lose an additional e800 to e900 a month as a result of yesterday’s budget measures.

“I couldn’t sleep last night. I am now suffering from anxiety since February over this because I never thought at 51 years of age that I am going to be financially insecure for the rest of my working life,” she said.

Ms O’ Byrne said she would rather become a criminal than pay any more tax and said she understood how people could feel suicidal in the current climate. “I actually understand why people go home and hang themselves. I could take tranquillisers and I don’t take anything like that. I cried myself to sleep last night,” she said.

Another man expressed concern at the impact of the halving of jobseekers allowance for those under 20 years.

Stephen Matthews explained to the Finance Minister how his unemployed 19-year-old son who is an apprentice electrician could end up homeless as a result of the cut.

“Due to circumstances at home here we have downgraded to a two bedroom house. There is no room for him to come home and after the cut yesterday, he is now living on e100 a week. After last night he is going to have to live on the streets or go to some homeless shelter,” he said. “Well if he lived in Northern Ireland he would be getting £50 a week,” was the remarkable response of the Finance Minister.

Olivia, whose husband has a highly paid job in the public sector, who works part time herself and is putting a daughter through college pointed out to the minister that her family would be better off on social welfare benefits after the budget.

“I actually feel totally totally abused by this government. I am a 1970s emigrant who came back in 1995 and I wish to God I’d never come back,” she said. “We have one car at home. We don’t have a second home. We are not fat cats. We didn’t ride the Celtic Tiger. We are just ordinary working middle class people who are facing becoming the new destitute middle class of this country,” added Olivia.