Readers Blog: Ordinary people not responsible for hardships

The article ‘The centre is finding it pretty hard to hold’ by Daniel McConnell on Saturday’s Irish

I am one of the people he is talking about. I would like to inform him that I left home with nothing. I educated myself and worked all my life, paid my PRSI. We saved to buy a house, we paid 17% interest on all the money we borrowed, we paid tax at 45%, and we managed to save a little money for the rainy day.

Then the Government came along and raided the money that we had saved to give ourselves a pension.

I remember a time when we could not go for a drink on Friday after work because it cost £5 for a round of drinks for five people then and we didn’t have it. We furnished our house from bits and pieces that friends and family gave us until we could afford to improve it.

We didn’t feel it necessary to have new cars, holidays, meals out etc on money we couldn’t afford.

How dare he think we and the majority like us are responsible for the current situation. We are not.

We never grew up thinking that the world owed us a living. We got up and got on with it. Yes! I now have a small pension and I still live according to my means.

However badly off he thinks he is, he needs to open his eyes and see how much worse it is for so many others. This is not because of me or my likes, but because of the people who were given lottery-type loans they could never pay back. Nobody has held these people to account for that.

So now Daniel... get up off your posterior, get going and look at how much money you might be wasting. Target the right people. There are very wealthy people in this country paying little or no tax, along with artists/writers, many of whom are earning huge sums.

There are corporations not paying their fair share, as well as a number of self-employed people not paying all they should be.

There are people getting benefits they are not entitled to. Why are the unemployed not made to work 20 hours a week for their benefits? Lastly, can anyone explain to me why the unpaid portion of the Dáil bar bill has to be paid by us... hello?

Your level of arrogance and ignorance is astounding, but how dare you think you can blame me or other ordinary people?

Anne Marie Fogarty

Carrigeen

Waterford