Minister for Finance Michael Noonan
Matthew Taylor, Jack Leahy, and Leanna Byrne react to the measures announced in today’s budget.
Hitting students at work and at play
Matthew Taylor – Opinion Editor
As if the government couldn’t find enough ways to screw students in the budget, they’ve decided not only to hit us “at work” but also “at play”. New measures introduced in this year’s budget will have particular ramifications for the arts block crowd, with a €1 levy on wine, as well as 10C increases on pints and tobacco, with a 50c levy on rolling tobacco. The increase on wine has been widely criticized by both bar, off licence and restaurant owners. Adrian Cummins, chief executive of the Restaurants Association of Ireland has labelled the decision as “very short sighted” while Evelyn Jones of the National Off-Licence Association has stated that the increase will simply drive shoppers across the border.
While many health campaigners will view these increases as a step in the right direction in discouraging the consumption of unhealthy products, it is undoubtedly a move by the government to take our small pleasures away from us. There is no moral high ground for smokers and drinkers on this increase, but it’s still annoying. People in this country work hard so that they can enjoy themselves in their down-time, and that just got more expensive.
Hardship is now a fact of student life – don’t justify the suffering of your friends.
Jack Leahy – News Editor
This budget is no more than an arithmetical exercise that is profoundly ignorant of its human cost. Students are by no means the most deserving or vulnerable members of society, but there is no reason to be unequivocal with regards the vast range of regressive measures introduced today.
I am, quite frankly, unconcerned about what arguments anyone may make in defence of this latest failed chapter in Ireland’s attempted economic recovery. The bottom line, regardless of funding models advanced in vacuous debates on corridors and in debating halls, is that student hardship just got a hell of a lot worse. Shame on any member of the student body who defends that fact according to an abstract ideological or political imperative. Reality always trumps idealism and the reality, in this case, is visceral.
Across the country, heating is off and meals are being prepared in the dark, if they’re even being prepared at all. Students are sleeping in tents to offset the cost of accommodation and some have begun working in the sex trade. The Students’ Union and JCR Halls are preparing to launch a deal with a wholesaler that would provide four meals for €10 – and the looming danger is that such a cost is out of the reach of the students for whom this initiative exists. How much worse does it have to get before students approach the pre-budget discourse with a real and tangible sense of unity?
The government is has today taken €250 more from you for an education whose quality is constantly in decline, €260 more if you pay your own way through College, and has endangered your grant or those of your classmates as thresholds are adjusted. For families dependent on other forms of state income, the situation is worse still – and so what if it was to be expected?
It is evident that the student contribution has outlived its worth as a method of partial funding, both in terms of the range of access it permits at its new rate or as a contributor to a quality of education. It needs to be replaced – but that argument cannot change the fact that lights, ovens, and heaters will be kept off in student accommodation at an increasing rate over the coming weeks. That’s no way to live.
Imagine living in a country where the punishment your incur for someone else’s greed and excesses increases on a yearly basis. It happens with a callous disregard for your situation or what you have already endured – and with the promise that it will continue punctuated by the sinister consolation that we all have to suffer. Welcome to austere Ireland.
No surprises from spineless Labour
Leanna Byrne – Deputy Editor
This was the first promise the Labour have managed to keep. They raised the Student Contribution by €250 and they promise to do it again, and again, and again. The sentiments from the ‘Fed Up, Stand Up’ campaign was too good to be true. We knew it was coming. In fact, I would have been surprised had the Minister announced otherwise.
The government are calling this budget “tough but fair”. The only equality, however, can be seen in the balancing of the accounting books. The numbers match up, but what the coalition have created is a step back in third level education towards a ‘what can you afford’ education? The long-term implications of the past six austerity budgets will inevitably lead to high education entry barriers. We only have to look at our neighbours in England to realise what is ahead for us.
The irony is that Labour is part of the widening gap in education. A party that prides itself on a changing structure of economic distribution have hammered another nail into Irish education. We’ve been promised so much; but been dealt an unequal hand. In fact, we’re looking down the line at a broken student with limited options. Even further down the line an incoming government will have to deal with a populace with international education standards that cannot compete.
As education becomes polarised between those who can and cannot afford, Labour are creating the society that they opposed so much. The policies that they so despised when they were in opposition have become a reality while they were in government.
Labour have abolished any scrap of an equal third level education system – they should be ashamed.
Nothing controversial
Mark O’Meara
