“Green Shoots” and “Hope” missing from Budget

New Mandate needed –

General Election should be called.

Its difficult to see where the green shoots of growth will come from following the recent emergency budget according to Cllr Catherine Murphy.   The pockets of all taxpayers were picked, with the low to middle income groups seeing much of their discretionary spending wiped out.    While the budget did include a plan, its main focus was to balance the books,  it lacked  vision and hope with an overriding  promise of more punishment to come in 2010 and 2011.   “Nowhere could I see in this budget a vision for the kind of society we should be aspiring to,  a future that would inspire hope and make the sacrifices palatable with the promise of  arriving at a better place.”  

So enormous are the tax increases and cuts it will take time for the public to fully digest them.  I have no doubt the anger will mount over the coming weeks and months.    While taxation has increased dramatically there will be no corresponding improvement in public services,   closure not only of hospital beds but of whole wards cannot be ruled out;   large class sizes, some of the biggest in Europe with Kildare being a particular black spot,  are set to rise further;  public transport services are set to contract and with Local Government starved of funds Council’s will struggle to provide front line services.   All of this will contribute towards  depressing the public mood in the months to come.

Up to 10 Cabinet meetings were held prior to the framing of the recent “Emergency Budget”.    This was partly to avoid the kind of mistakes made in the October budget which saw the scrapping of the medical card for over 70’s,  cuts in education that will result in larger class sizes from next September and the introduction of the 1% Levy on all and the public service pension levy.  The combination of which brought a variety of groups on to the streets and the reversal or modification of some of the budget measures  The gigantic scale of the tax increases and cuts will mean the Local and European Elections will inevitably  become a referendum  on the performance of this FF/Green Government.

It is difficult to expect the public to trust those who were the architects of many of our problems.     The transfer of enormous sums of developer generated loans from the Banks smacks of a return to the roulette table.   The decision’s that are being made on our behalf are of such vital consequences, not only to the current generation but to generations to come,  draws me to the conclusion that  a fresh mandate is now required and a General Election should be called Cllr Murphy concluded.

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Posted by catherinemurphy on April 10, 2009. Filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.