Antony Wolfe | Staff Writer
Irish people are fed up with one austerity budget after another. Budget 2014 marked our seventh austerity budget since the ‘Great Recession’ started in 2008. In the years since, taxes and levies have been created with a dazzling array of acronyms. It’s getting to the point where one starts to wonder how many more types of charges the government can make up.
In many ways it is a laughable situation to be in, but many Irish students can barely afford a laugh in these austerity times. You’d have almost expected a quota on jokes included in the budget.
Thanks to a delay at Berlin Schönefeld Airport, the Budget outline was delivered late and the speech in the Dáil was pushed back an hour accordingly. Brian Keegan, Head of Taxation with Chartered Accountants Ireland, told RTÉ prior to the big showdown that the Budget would be “tax by a thousand hikes”. As Minister for Finance Michael Noonan began his speech with a standard dig at the previous government’s flaws, one would rather be cut by a thousand knives than endure more than half an hour of his rolling, monotonous voice.
Student observers might well have wanted to play a drinking game during the Budget speech, if only booze wasn’t so expensive. And worse news was yet to come.
In Budget-speak, increasing tax on an ‘old reliable’ is a safe bet. This category usually includes excise tax on goods such as tobacco and alcohol, the reason being that consumers will still buy these goods despite the price hike. Therefore the increase of 10c on a pack of cigarettes was pretty much inevitable. DU Smokers, a student-led tobacco lobbying group, have yet to comment but it is said they are fuming.
Pints are also up by 10c and bottles of wine by 50c – it’s almost as if the government are actively trying to get us to smoke and drink less. Those snakes.
If the drink tax hikes were bad enough, cuts to the dole will mean a further push factor towards youth emigration. Combined with the abolishment of the air travel tax, conspiracy theorists believe the government has made a deal behind closed doors to deliver young Irish people to foreign countries in return for debt relief. Thankfully Noonan stopped short of announcing the construction of a large hovercraft to travel directly from Dublin to London.
If emigration doesn’t float your boat, a ‘Start Your Own Business Scheme’ was announced for those who are in long-term unemployment. This is your chance, budding entrepreneurs: if your Transition Year Mini Company was in any way successful, this is your chance.
If emigration doesn’t float your boat, a ‘Start Your Own Business Scheme’ was announced for those who are in long-term unemployment.
However, when all is said and done, it could have been worse. It is a stereotype that Irish people love to complain. Even if the Budget had offered a newborn kitten for every Irish household, there would still be some dissenters claiming we should have received puppies instead.
At the day’s close, sources say many TDs hit up the Dáil bar and racked up a four-figure bill in similar size to the infamous ‘Lapgate’ night in July. Photos circulating around social media today include a prominent member of the Cabinet draped in an Irish flag emblazoned with the words “Angela Merkel thinks we’re at work”. Despite the tax hikes, at least we’ll always have the Irish ‘charm’.
