SSIAs and tax cuts will do nothing for the poor

I READ recently that a report from the ERSI has indicated that 8% of the population, or approximately 300,000 people, including many children, are living in consistent poverty.

What little hope I had that something might be done to remedy this situation evaporated in view of the thinking that permitted the SSIAs and the PDs’ policy on taxation.

With the SSIAs, the Government gave people, some of whom were already well off, more money for doing nothing. And when the time comes soon to cash them in, the Government will reward those who were already well-off with even more money if they invest in a personal pension scheme.

The Government didn’t give the poor money for doing nothing, or an enhanced pension.

Meanwhile, PD leader Mary Harney says she wants the tax rate for couples earning up to €100,000 a year reduced to 20%.

Now while it may be laudable to reduce the financial hardships and suffering of people earning €100,000 annually, the poor get nothing from such ‘generosity’, except perhaps a reduction in public service spending and some privatisation to help pay for the tax cuts.

Proposing tax cuts for those earning €100,000, while 300,000 citizens live in consistent poverty, is obscene.

Such obscenities will continue for as long as the dominant political and economic philosophy not only in Ireland, but throughout most of the developed world, is that greed is good, and that the best way to live is to try to cut our competitor workers’ throats before they cut ours.

It doesn’t help either when some of the people who support this system become blind idiots who deny that poverty even exists in Ireland.

Brian Abbott

Glencairn

Bishopstown Road

Cork