Dept to decide on child benefit changes

[wexfordman]

The whole universalist principle has been discredited by the crisis in our public-finances and by the way it encourages abuse by foreign-nationals who fly in every week to claim it and fly out again, or who remain in the State in order to claim it. The system also constitutes a regressive transfer of resources from the working class to the upper classes. There is no logic, notably in these turbulent economic times where a budget deficit of €20 billion has to be brought back within the Maastricht criteria of 3% of GDP, in subsidising the wealthy in our society as part of some bizarre notion that by doing so, the State is conferring "equality". On the contrary, it maintains inequality by subsidising the wealthy as much as the poor. Resistance to means-testing is not so much concerned for the welfare of children (as they claim) but rather reflects a phenomenon I have called "champagne socialism", which is a form of socialism that believes in subsidising the wealthy while using concern for the poor and children generally as a trojan-horse to mask the actual base motives. It has consistently been demonstrated that the Labour vote is largely a middle-class vote, reflecting in part how Labour has become a party dedicated to the interests of the comfortably-off, while masking it in old-style rhetoric about "equality" and concern for the poor. The reality is that real concern for the poor would be demonstrated in targetting welfare towards the most needy in our society, and that requires means-testing or taxing welfare so that resources currently going to the wealthy can instead be redirected to those who need it.

I'm stunned, a post from FT and no mention of Elites

Good points btw, except for the drosh about imiggrants I would agree

[Oldira1]

It is a myth to say that we need an ever increasing population to 'take care' of us when we are old. My parents are in their 80s and they have been active and healthy all their life hence they are still active and healthy - play golf, walk, do the garden, shopping, housework, drive, go on holiday, feed themselves, get dressed etc with no issues at all so why just cos people live longer doesn't mean they have to be dribbling in a chair in a 'care' home.

Healthier older people means less need for nurses and doctors and healthcare people and less children means less need for teachers and other school staff etc. Plus it vastly reduces the pressure on space and increases quality of life.

The Japanese ogvernment has started an official investigation to tease out the reality of a growing but active and healthy - and still working even if part time - population.

Do your parents receive a state pension? Use their bus pass? A medical card? Thats what 'take care' means. Without young people in the workforce there will be nobody around to fund those benefits.

[Lloyd-Apjohn]

Do your parents receive a state pension? Use their bus pass? A medical card? Thats what 'take care' means. Without young people in the workforce there will be nobody around to fund those benefits.

They get a pensions they have paid for, my mother gets the minimum because she was a housewife and of course they bus their bus pass.

The point being if you have paid for these during your lifetime you should be able to use the benefits later on and if you were to assess what people spend their money on during their life or what the state spends their taxes on you'll find in pure money terms people more than pay enough to get a decent pension and health service and free travel.

The fact that the bulk of their income has to be used to pay massive mortgages and childcare and travel costs is because of a deliberate poicy of corrupt politicians - how it a generation ago you could raise a family with about 5 children and 2 adults on one middle class income yet now it takes two full time incomes to raise a family with 2 children - that didn't happen by accident. So if it was done on purpose it can be reversed if there is a political will.

[Catalpa]

They should means test it, limit it to a max. no of kids, reduce the length of years it can apply

& restrict it to people from Ireland or countries where we have reciprocal arrangements at the same rate.

It should not apply to Asylum Seekers and anyone here under say 5 years.

If a non Irish person or their spouse have never worked here then they should not get it all.