A Different View
Where do our taxes go now we’ve a levy on everything?
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
What do we pay our taxes for? Yes, we all know that it’s ostensibly to fund public services – but where?
If it’s for the roads, well, we also pay road tax and now our property tax will also go to their upkeep.
Bigger projects are done on a public private partnership, and for that we will invariably end up paying a toll – so we cough up that way too.
If it’s for refuse services, it’s not – because they’ve all been privatised and anyway we paid for them before this, only it was directly to the County Council.
Now that they’re privatised, nobody has a say on how much they’ll cost because the state handed over that golden ticket to private operators, some of whom in turn have slashed the wages of workers to a pittance.
If it’s for free education, it’s not – because university fees are rising faster than the cost of a semi-detached home in Dublin, and every school in Ireland is badgering parents for what is supposed to be a ‘voluntary donation’ to keep the show on the road after capitation grants were slashed to pieces.
If it’s for water, it’s not – because we’re seeing the meters spreading across the nation like a virus. And even with ‘Big Phil’ Hogan now safely ensconced in Euope, we’ll know all about the cost of water then.
If it’s for health care, it’s not – we’re still the ones paying health insurance, and while nobody would deny proper health care to those who cannot afford it, we might all save money if they took the layers of bureaucracy out and ran the entire system as one, just like you’d think anyone would do for a facility servicing a population of just four million people.
If it’s for the upkeep of footpaths or hedgerows, it’s not – because you can say we either pay for those through our Local Property Tax or, given the state of them, you can argue that there’s little or no money spent on them anyway.
If it’s for building local authority houses, it’s not – we haven’t seen one of those in years because Councils came to depend on developers to throw a few in with their cardboard estates so that the local authorities themselves no longer had to bother.
And when the property bubble burst, it was so long since they’d had to budget for this that they’d forgotten how to do it.
If it’s for farm subsidies, it’s not – they come from Brussels. Same for disadvantaged areas and other schemes of that ilk.
If it’s for our oil exploration programme or our leveraging of natural resources, it’s not – because we handed them over with a subservient doff of the cap to foreign interests a generation ago.
It’s also looking like it’s not to subsidise public transport either, because so many routes have been cancelled or drastically reduced because of poor numbers….which was supposed to be the very reason we paid Bus Eireann a massive subsidy in the first place.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
The only time in your life that you should ever utter the words: “Do you know who I am?” are if you’ve just had a bang on the head or you are unfortunately suffering from dementia.
Because, otherwise, the phrase ‘do you know who I am’ only serves to make things a whole lot worse.
Normally, the phrase is unleashed towards late night door staff on a wave of alcohol – and never once in the history of time has it produced the result the utterer had intended.
The doorman may well know who you are which is often the very reason you’re not getting into the place in the first instance – or if he doesn’t know who you are, he won’t be unduly influenced when he does, unless you’re a famous movie star or his long-lost cousin.
‘Do you know where I am?’ might often be closer to the phrase you’re looking for, because that would serve you well when you’re looking for a taxi.
‘Do you know who I am?’ is a threatening phrase that in truth wouldn’t frighten the cat. But if you’re anxious to dig the hole a few shovels deeper, you should follow up with ‘I’d like to speak to your manager.’
Managers can be elusive at the best of times, but they’re normally rarer than hen’s teeth when it comes to the small hours of the morning – and even if they’re there, they are most likely watching proceedings on CCTV…just so they know who you are, in case you yourself can’t remember.
‘I’d like to speak to your manager’ suggests that you and he or she are from the one social sphere which is several strata north of the one occupied by door staff.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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A Different View with Dave O’Connell
As it turned out, we were much closer to a Eurovision win than we could ever have imagined – not Ireland, of course, because we’ve now mastered the art of just sending cannon fodder to be blown out in the semi-final.
No, this was just two of us – myself and our eldest – who were lucky enough to be at Anfield for the Reds’ recent win over Brentford, where positioned in the seat right in front of us were four happy lads from Finland.
One of them, we now know, was Käärijä, the singer of the catchiest song at Eurovision, Cha Cha Cha.
But just a week before 7,000 people sung his catchphrase at the Eurovision Arena, he and two his mates – accompanied by an older bloke who had to be either his dad or from the national broadcaster – sat anonymously in the same corner of the lower level of Anfield’s Main Stand.
He was utterly unknown to us as well of course, and the only thing that saw him stand out was his green nail varnish. Live and let live, of course, but it still ensures that you make an impression even if it looks like you were just very late for St Patrick’s Day.
Käärijä may well be Liverpool’s greatest Scandinavian fan, although the bar for that is set fairly high, given that they invade the city in greater numbers every two weeks than the Vikings did just once during the first millennium.
Equally, he may not be a football fan at all – although, as the rest of the week proved, he sure loves a crowd.
Positioned as we were in the corner of the Main Stand, the next section to us, around the corner in the Anfield Road Stand – currently adding a top layer – was occupied by the visiting Brentford supporters.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
A Different View with Dave O’Connell
Contactless payments reached a record €17.9 billion in Ireland last year – up by 31 per cent on 2021, as people came out from under their Covid shell and appear to have left their cash behind them.
Figures from the Banking & Payments Federation found that – despite the cost-of-living increases – the Irish public made three million contactless payments a day, worth an average of €53 million in the final quarter of 2022.
Given that there are 3.8 million people in Ireland over the age of 18, that means that almost every single one of us tapped the card every day last year.
And again, on the presumption that there are a few who still prefer peeling a fifty off a wad of notes, the true figure may be even higher, as we eschew actual money every time we go into a restaurant, bar or shop.
Then comes the monthly morning of reckoning when you open your statement – electronic of course because, like paper money, banks don’t deal in paper statements anymore either – and your guilty secrets unfurl like a rap sheet before your very eyes.
Five taps of a Friday night in the local, followed by a five-ounce burger meal on the way home.
And just why did you need a family-pack of crisps when a small bag would have done? Was all that beer and wine really for a party, or a night in just for one?
Cash provided plenty of dark corners to ignore your profligacy, but there are no hiding places in the contactless world.
Worse still, until that morning of reckoning arrives, you’ve no clue how much you’ve spent, and handing over the card doesn’t hurt half as much as parting with hard cash.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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