Extracted from the Irish Independent 15/04/2009 What a country… I recently had a long conversation with a friend of mine who lost his job. He was in a reasonably good job and after a little bit of overtime was earning a gross salary of €35,000 per year. So I asked him the obvious question of how he was going to cope now with four children to feed and, I have to be honest, the answer startled me. He was actually a lot better off and now in a position to go out golfing every day while his children are at school. Frankly, I did not believe him until I sat down and did the sums. On a salary of €35,000, his annual net income after the mini Budget was €28,854, after all deductions. Now he is on the supplementary welfare allowance which -- with a wife and four children -- gives you €443.90 per week, or €23,083 annually. As he also has a mortgage, he is entitled to mortgage interest supplement which pays all the interest on your mortgage. In his case, this was €1,200 per month of his €1,500 mortgage, or €14,400 per annum. He is also entitled to back-to-school and footwear payment of €905 per year for four children, a medical card which is worth, on average, say €500 per year (probably more) and a heating supplement which I cannot quantify. In total, he now has tax-free income of €38,888, an increase in his net income of €10,034 per year for working on his golf handicap. Based on the calculations after the mini-Budget, you would need to earn more than €47,000 per year if you have four children to justify continuing to work. This is even before taking into account the costs of working, such as petrol, car maintenance, tolls, lunches and so on. Now in any civilised society, and especially in a society in a deep recession with a huge welfare bill, surely the government must give people an incentive to go out and work Making the child benefit taxable or means tested later this year is just going to make the situation worse and encourage more people to give up work and rely on the State to live. It could even drive our small economy to collapse as the welfare bill gets bigger and bigger as more people, including myself, ask: why should I bother to go out to work when it is basically costing me money to work? Unless something radically changes, I will be joining my mate on the golf course very soon. Andy McNamara Drogheda, Co Louth <http://www.independent.ie/topics/County+Louth>
let me know if anyone is looking for a wife and a few kids ,i have one kid and a wife to trade in ,oo good thats so bad
i have a pain in my hole working like a dog and getting no thanks 4 it i have a wife and 3 kids im thinking of joining ur man on welfare id be much better off instead of trying 2 make ends meet
jesus man id swap with you no problem,...im ****ing sick of applying for jobs...id gladly work now as im bored outa my brain every day and feel bad seeing every one come home from work and me after doing nothing for the day..as i said id love to be working now...
Thats incredible that. Reading that makes you want to give up working in the morning. He'll be getting a christmas bonus as well.
We could set up an Irishkop.com baby pool and lend/swap them out for social welfare inspections - that way we all could have 10+ kids - real money in that! Some non nationals have the right idea in the west - they're baptising their kids multiple times in different churches under different names. Sounds to be paying them well!
you serious about that baptising thing????? ive never heard about that before...thats mad...unreal and shocking...
Yes - I thought a baptismal cert hadn't much standing officially but I was obviously wrong. I will try and find the newspaper article. Edit: Found it - front page of Tuam Herald. Priests are denying it's happened but there's no smoke without fire. http://www.tuamherald.ie/pages/page1.pdf
Mad, unreal and shocking dunners!!!thats a first but that is disgraceful, its amazing, if some people put the same effort into something positive that they do scamming the system imagine the possibilities!!
i got married march of last year and in the run up to it a chap that used to work with me said "fair play to you getting married bob(hes the only person to call me bob but thats another story)but youll only get screwed over for being so honest" and hes dead right.theres a lot of lads i know claiming they are away from the partner and they can claim tax relief plus the other half can claim pretty much all the stuff mentioned in the letter in the original post.weve six month old twins and i cant claim any tax back on them and then sure you know all the rest regards health care and pensions and tax etc