Time to tax living in case we take it for granted!

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

Our Minister for Finance Michael Noonan was dead right, you know, when he said that, if the Government kept giving us our water free gratis and for nothing, we’d just flood the house by leaving the tap running all day.

So it’s not so much that the Government is screwing the taxpayer by charging them on the double (because they seem to forget we already paid the Council for it through our tax payments) for what comes out of their tap….in reality they’re actually saving us from drowning in our own homes.

And if water was free flowing through the tap, he knows we’d be out there power washing the car, the front of the house, the cobble-locked driveway, the neighbours, the postman, passers-by, the dog, the lamp post….who knows where it would all end?

He was right too about electricity – imagine if it was free….sure we’d never turn out the lights even on the hottest, sunniest day of summer.

We’d have the immersion on just to heat up the water that we weren’t paying for either; we’d never turn off the telly or the three-bar electric heater even if we had to march around the house in our underwear because of the Saharan heat.

Because we haven’t an ounce of responsibility between us; the only thing we understand is pain, and nothing is more painful than paying for things we used to get for free.

So you see Michael Noonan is right when he says we’re not be trusted with things like that; if we don’t pay a premium for services, we have no value on them and we’ll just waste them until they’re gone.

Unlike the Government which wastes nothing – as in, the chance to go to the United States or Singapore for St Patrick’s Day, the chance to sit in the best seats in Croke Park on All-Ireland Final day, the chance to open a packet of crisps once the television cameras are there to witness them doing it.

But the rest of us don’t know when we have it good.

Look at the way we wilfully abuse the free air that they’ve put at our disposal, brazenly breathing it in and out like there was no tomorrow, instead of pausing for breath, skipping every fourth or fifth intake, and acknowledging the Government’s generosity in not charging us for it.

Why should we be allowed to sit out in the sun for free? Or gaze out over Galway Bay while we walk along the Prom?

So, while we’re at it, here are some more suggestions for making us pay for things we use and shouldn’t have for free.

For example, those who dry their clothes on an outside line should pay a wind tax.

Those who pride themselves on their lush lawns and colour-filled flower beds should pay a rain tax.

For more,  read this week’s Connacht Tribune.