I want my money back
They’re calling it The Return of the Celtic Tiger or Celtic Tiger II.
Government tax receipts are coming in way ahead of budget estimates ( +1.6 billion euro) and government spending is 334 million less than predicted.
Everyone is jumping for joy at the economic miracle that is Ireland. Just how do we do it? We’re the envy of Europe (in our own minds, anyway) for our prudent and intelligent management of our economy.
But hold on a sec. Put the champagne on ice for a moment before we lose the run of ourselves altogether and talk ourselves into an even bigger housing bubble.
What the figures say to me is that Department of Finance forecasts and estimates are not worth the paper they’re written on. These estimates are the primary input to the government budget for the year and are used to decide how the government allocates funds to the various services. It’s pretty important that the predictions are at least in the neighbourhood of the reality that follows.
There have been severe cutbacks in services left, right and centre over the past year - mostly affecting the weaker and poorer members of society - as the government attempted to balance the books according to the estimates. Estimates that now appears to have been off to the tune of almost 2 billion euro.
So while the government pats itself on the back for so-called prudent management of the economy, hospitals and schools around the country are suffering from lack of investment and people on half the minimum wage cannot get a medical card (the number of medical card holders has fallen by 100,000 since 1997).
The government has overcharged me. They have taken more tax then they have budgeted to spend and they have actually spent less than they budgeted for.
I want my money back.
Mark Waters marked time at 7:36 pm on October 5th, 2004 .
