There is an end to the amount of money you can either take from people, or ask them to contribute. There is a bottom to the pit and in this Country at the moment I think that many people are reaching that place.
Excluding those at the top of the pile who will always have enough to fund extravagant lifestyles, the vast majority of people are now tightening their belts to the extent that it hurts - or are living quietly, fretting, becoming more anxious and desperate as the bills keep coming and there is nothing there to pay them.
This is happening to people who have worked all their lives and are now either earning less or have been made redundant; or their pension has been whacked out from under them a lá the Waterford Crystal workers; or self employed people who can't get cash flow or can't get paid and many are trying to live on little or no income and are becoming increasingly desperate not seeing where it will end or how they can get themselves out of this situation.
If you're trying to reach on a mortgage, loan repayments for say, a car, health insurance, home insurance, heating, phone, lighting - none of which are luxuries by any means.
Then you have to visit the Doctor (none of whom it seems to me have reduced their fees) or more expensively, the Emergency Room, or worse still, a Consultant and the school is looking for a contribution for running costs and the teenager needs a fortune just to keep ticking over, and the kids are growing out of their clothes, and the bins have to be paid for and the motor tax and the carbon tax and the.....well you get the idea.
Costs are not coming down across the board. Income is going down. That's never going to lead to a balanced situation. Many people are coming to the end of their tether and are clinging on by their fingernails often not seeing a way out for themselves or their families. Homes are being sold. Cars repossesed. Sick children going without that Doctors visit even.
People who have lots of money - aka our TD's and especially Ministers - will never understand how desperate people are becoming on this front. People falling behind on mortgage payments - most would do almost anything to ensure this doesn't happen but many at this stage just can't help it. After all shelter and food are our most basic needs.
There are a whole coterie of professionals who seem immune to cost reductions. And still the blasé attitude comes down from on-high. From those with a fortunes worth of money and the prospect of a further fortunes worth of pensions and lump sums insulating their backsides from the harsh realities most of us are dealing with day in and day out. Or giving payrises to those in the banking sector - particularly Anglo Irish Bank, for Gods sake!!!!
Then to add insult to injury they can't even do their jobs; they witter on about helicopters not flying in dark and clouds when that's a lie - and one that has been pointed out to them and yet they persist. Less is more they tell us! A 12 hour service will deliver more than a 24 hour service! This is actually what they're expecting us to swallow!
They deny us a University because maybe it mightn't go down well in ones own constituency; they fill the airwaves with so much drivel and noise that its hard after a while to decipher whats truth anymore. They can't, it seems, really do anything much at all except make an unmitigated mess of everything.
Their weapon of choice, is surely the boomerang!
A bit like the principle which says that there are less deaths when doctors are on strike I'm beginning to think that we'd all be better off without the lot of them!
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