To say Ireland has the right idea: Budget 2023

[50percentNamaste50percentGoFuckYourself]

I watched agog at last weeks UK mini budget...an absolute travesty.

Today was Ireland's Budget 2023, which was much more impressive.
Hightlights include:

25% reduction in childcare fees
Extension of free GP care to cover half the country
Free contraception
Large reductions in third level fees (which were already a third of the UK)
Increases in lower tax bands
Increases in all social welfare payments
Double payment of child benefit
Electricity credits of 600€ per household
Reduced tax on fuels and energy costs
Increase rent tax credits
Funding for 10,000 new social homes
Increased third level grants
Removal hospital charges and free contraception extended

It's all concentrated on the cost of living, on making things easier for people on low and average wages, looking after those with less.

It's what a budget in these times should be

@mishmased 11 is not old to have baby teeth still, there is no malocclusion that can be treated by Invisalign that needs to be treated in a 9 year old. £4000 is crazy money you could get traintrack braces which would bodily move the teeth to the correct place (Invisalign only tilts teeth or move them very slightly) for less. I rarely comment on dental threads but best practice is not for treatment from 9/10 with Invisalign.

@50percentNamaste50percentGoFuckYourself Paschal? Is that you?!

@Oinkypig definitely food for thought. Really appreciate your input. If I was presenting to your surgery what would you advise as we are 4 months in (got it in May)?

@Somatronic 😂😂😂
MaryLou is that you 🤣🤣🤣🤣

My incisors (no idea what the correct name for them is) are my baby teeth! I'm almost 50! Apparently the actual teeth are stuck in the gums somewhere. My brain clearly didn't feel it was necessary to tell them to move!! I did ask whether they could pull them and then let the others come down (as you can imagine, my baby teeth are small compared to my other teeth) but the dentists (a few different ones) said that the teeth are not just going to come down all of a sudden lol.

Perhaps coincidentally, my dd didn't get her first tooth until she was 14 months old; they knew they had a long life ahead of them haha.

Hmmmm maybe it is time to hope for a united Ireland

@VeryImportantTitle why did I not hear this before 😱 well because I didn't post on here at the time! Arghh I hope no damage is being done to my poor child's teeth whilst costing me a small fortune at the same time.

Does that mean your incisors (yes thats what they're called 😂 are smallish?

Most of those things we already have in the uK though or better. Some of them you have repeated. The uK is a total mess at the moment but Ireland has its problems too and it doesn’t help to pretend otherwise. 10,000 homes won’t touch the sides of the housing crisis and really not the best idea to heavily tax concrete.

Yes, they're small (and discoloured due to their age) but I never knew that they were my baby teeth until I was in my 20's!

I did accuse my mother of neglect when I found out though. I'm lucky I still have any teeth left after that accusation! 😁

I've often wondered whether my facial features would look different had my adult teeth descended.

Genuinely made me laugh.

Back to the OP though- I think it’s just a different flavour of shit isn’t it with the two economies and governments.

We left Dublin to move up North 5 years ago- despite us both having ok salaries, we couldn’t have afforded to save a deposit to buy a house and rare a family while paying rent. Things have gotten even worse- a SIL has had to move to Cavan as house prices in Dublin are just beyond anyone who isn’t a Fine Gael politician or a vulture fund, never mind a couple both earning a normal wage.

Then there’s the rental crisis, but no shortage of Air B N Bs.

The Ireland board on Reddit is full of millennials and younger, talking about leaving because they can’t see a future in Ireland as they just don’t feel they can afford a decent standard of living.

I don’t know. Everything is just shit wherever we look, none of these governments are willing to make decisions which will make real change for the people who need it.

No.

They should have went after the electrical providers instead of putting on to the tax payer.

They created a massive housing crisis and huge rent inflation from bailing the banks out and selling off properties to foreign investors.

Now banks are leaving Ireland.

Taking payments from builders over the percentage of social housing that was to be allocated.

Building no social or affordable housing when investors are pushing normal families out of the market creating bidding wars.

Unless you are on social welfare it isn’t going to help many.

I feel forced to vote SF.

It's a smoke screen.

@edwinbear
Ireland has a budget surplus.thanks to taxes paid by multinationals based in Ireland.

The UK otoh is borrowing to pay for tax cuts for the rich.

I am not saying it isn't a generous budget but only because they've messed up the country.

It's very well offering these things another when the services aren't available.

Gps, childcare providers, after school clubs passed 4pm are a rare find.

Should we have ever been paying 80 euro a night inpatient charge, 60 to see a GP.

I have friends who can't afford the gp at times when they really needed one.
Maybe they'll qualify now if they can get an appointment.

Classroom sizes are hitting 30 pupils.

Homeless families are being forgotten and the population is increasing daily.

They hammer small domestic landlords in tax forcing them out of the market.

Theyve always had to pay for childcare. Its roughly around €55 for a GP visit and €60 A and E admissions fee. so its not about charging the other half, as not charging half if that makes sense.

I don't know much about Ireland's development, but do find it so odd that there is a housing crisis there as well. The Irish population is tiny compared with that of England, and the density of the population must be really low. You'd think it would be easy to create lots of housing!

@mishmased @VeryImportantTitle yes some people have retained baby teeth because their adult teeth are either missing or impacted/ectopic again something not helped by Invisalign. Honestly @mishmased i have never heard of a 9 year old in Invisalign. Someone presenting to me at 9 I would be saying either wait for the baby teeth to fall out, potentially extract the baby teeth (there is something around that) but if the child wasn’t able to have the teeth out I would still be saying let’s wait a while to see if they fall out.

Invisalign is a great system but it’s purely cosmetic and really for people who don’t want the time/appearance of conventional braces and don’t have a severe malocclusion. Are you going to an actual orthodontist? I am going to caveat this to say I’ve not seen your child so they may have some sort of issue that is best treated with Invisalign, early, at the cost of €4000 but I just can’t imagine what that is.

This is really interesting to read because we’re considering doing the same. We’ll never be able to afford a house here and rent is crippling us. Maybe the grass isn’t greener in NI though 😕

It really doesn't though. The NHS is dying, while the HSE is improving and egtting cheaper.

The UK is NOT increasing SW payments, its not giving double child benefit (you only get it for 2 kids anyway, right?) UK has much higher uni fees which ar egoing up, not down like Ireland.

And your're definitely not building the scaled equivalent of 10000 social homes (150,000 or so?) next year!

Is Ireland perfect? Far from it. But when you compare this budget to the Tory one, they are worlds apart, in both real terms and attitude. The Irish budget is designed to help the people, particularly those at the lower end of the scale. The UK one is to make wealthy wealthier and fuck the poor people.
That's the point here.

It's admirable how they pay for over pensioners to have access to telecare systems for free. There's been huge advances in this industry and there's great potential in so many residents already having access to the systems.
Our equivalent in the UK is elderly people paying large sums up front and high monitoring fees for the most basic of systems without many of the peripherals they need as they're just too expensive.
I holidayed in the Kerry area recently and eating out was marginally cheaper for us than at home. We were wowed by the Adare area with its fabulous shops. I suspect we're all heading for a huge recession but that sounds like a good budget.

They are effectively running a tax haven based on low corporation taxes.

Exactly like Kwasi Kwarteng is trying to do.

Only its bad for him to do it because he is a Tory.

It's not a tax haven. It's a foot in the door of the full EU free-trade market combined with low corporate tax rates which makes Ireland a lucrative place to do business. The UK is NOT IN THE EU, so even if they dropped their corporate tax rate to 5%, they would NOT ENTICE MULTINATIONAL INVESTMENTS HERE.

Political stability is also NOT SOMETHING the UK has currently.

A highly educated workforce particularly in the tech industries is NOT SOMETHING the UK has.

So dropping the corporate tax rate HERE is not comparable to Ireland's model as the UK doesn't have as much to attract multinational investment as Ireland has.

Exactly. The UK can't do it, they don't have any of the necessary components.

If you look at comparable figures between Ireland and the UK

Weekly Jobseeker's Allowance (Ireland) €208
Weekly Jobseeker's Allowance (UK) £77.00

Child Benefit (UK) £21.80 a week for your first child and £14.45 a week for any children after that.
Child Benefit (Ireland) €32.31 a week for each child (double that PER CHILD if twins).

Undergraduate university fees (Ireland) - supposedly 'free' but most colleges charge an annual student contribution, formerly called the student services charge. It is also known as a registration fee and it covers student services and examinations. The amount of the contribution varies from one institution to another. The maximum rate of the student contribution for the academic year 2022-2023 is €3,000. If you're 'poor' though, you will get a grant to cover this and to cover your living expenses (or partly contribute at least)

Undergraduate fees (UK) - varies but as an example it is £9,250 per annum for UCL