Punters forced to call time as the charges keep on mounting up
I think this is the last time I’ll be joining you here for a pint.
What? You’re not telling me very bad news are you? You’re not dying or something awful are you? Or emigrating?
: Ah, no, nothing like that. No, I’m just going to give up coming down here for our two pints each fortnight. I just can’t afford it anymore. I’m going to stay at home and drink there instead.
Why not? You haven’t lost your job have you?
No, I still have it, although another dozen are being laid off in my section. I should be all right, even though the overtime is gone and I miss the money from that. No, it’s this household charge that Phil Hogan is introducing. I reckon that if I skip the pints and buy cans or bottles to bring home instead I’ll be much better off. I’ll miss the chats but what can I do? I won’t be able to afford the pub after the household charge comes in.
Hold on there. It’s just €100. Surely you can afford that? And it doesn’t come in until next January. You can’t seriously be quibbling about such a small amount of money sometime next year?
That’s easy for you to say. You sound like Alan Shatter telling us that it’s not even £100 of old money, and I don’t know what that’s got to do with anything, but I hate people telling me that it’s only a small amount and that I shouldn’t be cribbing because it’s a lot of money to me.
Did you not have any money saved that you can dip into for things like that?
Of course not, do you think I’d be complaining if I had? I had small savings but they’re all spent. I never thought that this would go on for as long as it has, or that it would keep getting worse. I’m at my wits’ end, I’m telling you. I have a house that’s worth €150,000 less than the mortgage I still have to pay on it and I can just about manage the monthly repayments. I keep hearing that interest rates are going to go up more and I don’t see how I can afford more money each month.
I’ve had to give up the health insurance for the family because I can’t afford that. I have two kids in school and for all the talk of free education the bills mount up, for books, for clothes, for after-school sports and the rest.
I’m not one of those people who they say went mad. We took one holiday a year and I make no apologies for that. We have two cars because I need one to get to work and herself needs the other to get the kids around. I bought the house because I needed somewhere with a small back garden for the kids and my wife wanted to live near to her parents and I didn’t want to drive more than an hour a day to work. Now I have to pay a poxy household charge of €100 to live in a house that’s worth less than I paid for it.
At least it’s just €100. It could be worse. If you were going to see Prince tomorrow in Dublin it would cost you €90 alone for the ticket and all the costs of getting there, and the same again for the second ticket.
If you were to go to Croke Park on Sunday to watch the two games with Cork and Mayo and Limerick and Kerry it would cost you €70 for the four of you to buy the tickets.
I have every Prince song I ever want to hear on my iPod and I’ll watch the Cork game on the TV. But I think you’re missing the point, have you not been listening? Hogan’s household charge is a temporary measure for two years. In 2014 there’s going to be a property tax and water charges are coming in. Did you hear that John FitzGerald chap from the ESRI on the radio the other day, Garret’s son? He predicted the government would want at least €1 billion a year from property tax and this thing will only bring in €160 million. He reckoned the average property tax will be €800 per year. Did you hear that? They can put me in jail before I’d pay that.
And who’d pay the mortgage then and pay the bills for your family? Look, that €800 is an average and it’ll be based on the size of the house and where you live, and what your income is too. There’s no way you’ll be charged that much.
Do you really believe that?
Man 1: But the Government has to raise taxes somewhere. It is spending nearly €20 billion more a year than it is taking in taxes. It doesn’t want to increase income taxes so it has to do so somewhere.
Why doesn’t it want to increase income taxes? Not on you or me like, but on those people earning really big bucks?
Apparently higher income tax acts as a disincentive to labour, or something like that. I’m not quite sure how that works but apparently all the rich people would leave and then we’d really be bunched.
: I’ll tell you how that it really works. Don’t put up the income taxes any more and it easier to push down wages instead, because apparently that creates jobs. I don’t know what job is going to be created by me taking a lower wage. My company isn’t going to sell anything more by me taking a lower wage and isn’t going to take on any more staff. Bigger profits for the owners on which they pay just 12.5% tax. But did you notice this week that this financial regulator chap wants the cap on bankers pay lifted from €500,000. Apparently they can’t get a new boss for AIB at under that rate. So let’s work that one out. The poor have to be paid less to create jobs and the rich have to be paid more to take jobs. We’ve learned loads, haven’t we?
I have to admit that I’m not too happy about the idea of water charges. I know it’s two years away but I hear it’ll be about €500 per year, depending on how much you use. My wife runs the tap constantly. I don’t know how I’ll get her to change.
It’ll come to that. You’ll be running to the sink to turn the water off, even though you know that half the water that’s being pumped to you is leaking out through the pipes.
: You’ll miss your couple of pints here you know. I know we only do it once a fortnight now, but it does you good to get it all off your chest. And to watch the matches as well.
: I’m keeping my Sky sports. I must have something. Instead of spending my money down here I’ll buy some cheap cans in the supermarket and sit in at home, watching the telly or reading the paper. Some things I can’t give up.
(publican, comes up to the bar counter): Lads, I have a bit of news.
: Good I hope.
: Not really, certainly not for me and probably not for you. I’m closing down. I can’t keep the place going. There aren’t enough people coming in and even when they do they’re spending less. I can’t afford the wages let alone all the various charges for bin collection, rates, water and everything else. Reducing the VAT on food didn’t make enough of a difference. It didn’t bring more people in to spend. You’ll have to go somewhere else for your few pints lads.
What’ll you do?
: I don’t know. I have a loan still on this place and I’m in trouble on a couple of foreign properties too. I’ve been trying to sell the licence but nobody is interested in buying it. It’s all the cheap drink in the supermarkets that’s putting me out of business. I just can’t compete. If it wasn’t for lads like you who like getting out for a pint and who don’t want to drink at home I’d have gone out of business long ago.
: I know what you mean, yeah.
: What is this country coming to? Can I have one for road please, one for my friend and one for yourself? I think we need it.
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