This is a great stroke by FF they are now getting Europe to pony up to keep us in the luxury we are accustomed to .Ireland is a little post colonial island stuck out in a big ocean like . .Cuba,Haiti,Dominican Rep,Jamaica ,We dont shite in the streets and live in shanty towns. We have depended on handouts from Europe for nearly 40 years .So whats new ?We have never lived within our means and expected everything to be handed to us on a plate .
Mrs Murphy had triplets her husband gave up work to help raise them .Mr Murphy got dole and a mortgage
subsidy a heating allowance and brought his gas and electricity bill to the poverty officer every month .Mrs Murphy got a disability allowance she suffered from post natal depression for 24 years. They saved their childrens allowance to pay for their mobile home in Kilmickridge.Two of the Murphy girl have children and no partners one live with their family .Sharon Murphy rents the house next door to her mothers .Between them the Murphy Family receive .5 welfare payments totaling over 1000€a week a rent allowances of just under 600€ a month .Medical cards childrens allowance a grant twords childcare .Old man Murphy gets the pension the Tuesday after next and will get a free bus pass .Telephone .Tv licence.So you have a choice of living anywhere else in the world .Where would you choose .?
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The Mulligan family all work in the Chokem ,Nekem and Plukim .Chicken making factory .They are all on the minimum wage .Mr and Mrs Mulligan and the 3 Mulligan girls household will be down about 1000€per month after the cuts .Their next door neighbours The Murphys will be down about 200€ per month .Maureen Mulligan is in a relationship and has
decided to go on the pill .It costs her 50€for a doctor visit and a prescription every three months .Helen Mulligan is very good with figures .Her boss says he will give her an office job if she completes a book keeping course .Helen dosent know if she can afford the course . Joan Murphy is starting a course in decorative wire bending .she will keep her welfare payment as a return to education grant .Her appointment to have her tattoo removed by laser at the hospital came on Wednesday.Now the Murphys are nobodys victims they receive the equivalent of 100,000€ pre tax per annum from the state .The Murphys break no law they just fill in the forms .The Mulligans and the Murphys are just two sides of the same coin heads you win tails you lose .
The first thing the Murphy Family need is work
.In WHERE HAVE ALL THE JOBS GONE I high light the stupidity of previous government policies to divest communities of their employment heritage while there was still a need for those services and produce.
In WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP .I point out the resulting desolation that occurs when this happens.FG intend to divest us of more semi state bodies to raise funds to create more employment .How short sighted .If these semi states fall into private hands .They will need to turn a profit .This will lead to job losses and increased prices for the services they provide .
In SOCIAL WELFARE REFORM There must be a real benefit in taking up employment for those capable of working .If we continue to weigh the system in favour of the unemployed and against the employed then we fail as a society.Just to focus on two impending changes .The water charges and the property tax .Will the unemployed be exempt from paying ?If so that is an extra bonus for not working.
In HOUSE PRICES .I aim to focus on the fly in the ointment .We have paid over the odds for our homes .Any contraction in the economy will only exacerbate the situation .
In MANAGEMENT CONTRACTS .I warn of what might happen if the burden is not spread fairly.If we continue to exempt certain sectors of the community from paying their fair share then the mass of the burden will rest on the few.
In HELP WITH PENSIONS If as the government say taking this medicine will reduce or national interest rate to those similar to Germany .I have proposed that the government should underwrite the cost of equity release for those homeowners who struggle on and make their repayments.We have a massive pensions time bomb that will wipe us out completely if it is not dealt with now.How do you think a German government who used their national savings to bail us out will look upon Irish citizens receiving non contributory old age non means tested pensions from the state while sitting on a domestic package worth hundreds of thousands.
In PROTECTING OUR SOVEREIGNTY.I raise the question do we need to rethink our place in the European Union or the €uro currency.
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The state is not Jesus.It cannot feed the people with limited Loaves and Fishes .I have given the example of the Murphy Family who have not broken any rule or law .They have just weighed up the situation and decided that the state will cater for them very nicely in return for simply accepting their Graces.Welfare payments are the Anaesthetic of the masses.The only way this state will survive is everybody puts in an effort and contributes.Irish politics in only separated by personalities not political dogma so the norm has been at election time each party offered a basket of sweeties to the voter to vote for us .It started for real in the 1977 election with the abolition of rates and motor tax.Jack Lynch won an overall majority.So the die was cast .We had embraced 
Auction politics .Successive elections saw increases in welfare .selloff of council houses,savings schemes, offered to coincide with up coming elections .As the gap between those in work and those on welfare closed the government offered benchmarking to redress the balance .This triggered wage increases amongst the social partners.Higher wages led to higher costs which led to higher prices which negated the increase that was awarded ,social partners complained about
the increased cost of living and demanded further wage rises and benchmarking and welfare increases .So although you had more cash in your pocket you had no more purchasing power.The cost of funding these increases was not met with a pro rata increase in government revenues .Which has led to the shortfall in the states budget .The mess in the banks is also a result of Candyshop elections .The sell off in council housing that we all embraced and bought our homes for 10,000 or less .Led to an engineered shortage in state housing and led to the building boom .Property taxes and VAT flowed into the state coffers and acted as a smoke screen to what was really simmering away in the background .Back to the Murphy Family who were getting their mortgage interest paid by the state as poor old Mr Murphy fit able bodied decided he would loose to much if he returned to his job as a security man.With rent allowances available from the state to unemployed people to rent a property . Speculators invested in blocks of apartments as rent allowances would fund their developments and the state would pay.What we ended up with was a hedonistic political roundabout of parties trying to out do each other in what they could offer to the voter to stick a No1 beside their candidate. Welfare is an essential part of any caring society but it must be earned – its not an automatic birthrite. Unlike living in the past and glorifying the ghosts of dead men who can have no influence on the future of this country .I offer a vision for the future based on the blatantly bleeding obvious .When politicians are finished invoking the memories of Dev and Collins and Brian Borus donkey to
placate the flag waving brigade .The reality is simple this country is going to change .It is going to have to change.The Murphys are going to have to get real.PS I was a Murphy.
