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.

The abolition of the share transfer tax on the stock market should have been kept for those making money out of share dealing and other financial instruments and perhaps lowered for the very many who lost big sums playing a mug’s game. The savings tax should applied to those with high incomes and not the poor as well, who will make buttons on the few euro that they have.

The Government said that there is a culture “where employees see themselves as employees for the rest of their lives”, in never wanting to move into business themselves. The budget generously mentioned the long-term unemployed who are out in cases where it is no fault of their own, which needed to be acknowledged in a society of nepotism and cronies. However, the banks are still in trouble and the German finance minister has recently shook his head at any further bailout until German legislation is agreed, which, he intimated, was not likely.

It must be remembered that the banks sunk this country and can easily do so again.

Maurice Fitzgerald

Shanbally

Co Cork