Rocky road ahead for banks

The budget carefully sidelined the issue of the bank losses for last year which were €5.96bn between AIB and Bank of Ireland alone. Next year’s losses will tell if austerity is working or if this country will crawl back to the EU for more money. The Government thinks it can exit the bailout programme, but it is not certain by any means and it could be a rocky road after that.

The phone allowance was an extravagance of the debt-leveraged boom era and deserved to be scrapped. Let’s face it: this is a country talking itself to death. We all know there are people with medical cards that should not have them given their incomes and access to occupational medical schemes.

The same could be said about disabled permits on cars for people who appear to be able-bodied, which is costing the country a fortune. The Government did not go far enough in taxing the old reliables such as nicotine and alcohol and wine, which are costing the health service billons in putting those with a unhealthy lifestyle back together.