Nurses’ pay, property tax and sickening pensions

It’s not a scheme, it’s a scam.

Employing highly trained graduate nurses at low pay is ridiculous, when senior and middle managers throughout the public sector and Health Service Executive are being paid in the region of €100,000-plus every year.

It would be such an interesting exercise to see how many of these have relevant third level business qualifications, which should be a mandatory requirement for such posts. Why not tax high earners more, and by high earners I mean people earning in excess of €70,000pa, and pay our nurses what they deserve.

The Residential Property Tax is so cruel. Home owners cannot sell homes, they may be unemployed or on very low incomes or pensions. All householders on less than €20,000 should be exempt. Surely, this could be made up by a higher tax rate, which would be so much fairer.

The Residential Property Tax will find me window shopping in charity shops.

Government is so removed from the ordinary person, they need to walk in our shoes, but that is difficult when they have such handsome salaries and pensions. The proposal to double the old age pension, and give the same to everyone, is a very good idea. Why not implement it?

JD O’Shea

Highfield Road

Rathgar

Dublin 6