We have a new President in Ireland, his name is Michael D. Higgins. From all 7 candidates, we thought he would be the best choice as Mr Higgins seems to be a well educated man with morals, idealism, experience and honesty, a former member of the Labour Party, who should be for the workers. We were delighted as we read in the papers that he would except a voluntary salary reduction of a half million Euro per year. We really thought he was a great man, but our enthusiasm did not last long as we heard later in the day that he has offered a voluntary salary deduction of 75.000 Euro only. This did not impress us so much anymore as he would still earn hundreds of thousands of Euros a year, the expenses and pensions from former political functions and non political employments included.
Is it really necessary that one person earns so much money in times like those, when people in the country are constantly told to tighten their belts? How will someone who has a family and depends on support from the dole, understand , that they have to accept further reductions from the social benefits, while there is obviously still so much money in the country to make the President of Ireland one of the highest paid politician in the whole world? How will someone, who has to care for a family, understand, that he won’t be able to give his children a nice Christmas with nice presents, when he cannot even afford the turkey on the table? The President, his ministers and everyone in a high position do they know about people’s worries or are they even interested?
People don’t know what they should vote for anymore, because every party seems to be the same like the ones before. How can you listen to the ministers shouting “We have to do something! We have to make more reductions to save the country!” when this means that only the people have to take the reductions ,while the politicians with their high salaries, high expenses, 5 pensions etc., don’t even pay for their haircuts or a chocolate bar themselves? Isn’t it logical that people with a normal understanding are getting annoyed about that? What opinion should we get about the government, when there are millions of Euros given to the banks, which have to be paid back by the people, while the same people don’t get credit and support from the banks and lose their homes, because they cannot afford them? How long do the politicians think that people will take that? Does it make us really wonder why the Irish are unhappy with their government?
I think, if there was one party, who would change everything, starting with cancelling children’s allowance for everyone who has a family income of say from 70.000 Euro a year upwards, as people with a good income don’t need support. Foreign people who have children abroad should have to proof that their children really exist and they should get only that amount for each child, which is given in their own country. Politicians should get only one pension, except they paid into another pension fund. The State pension should not be higher than 100.000 Euro, which would still be a nice amount of money and enough to live on. Politicians, who are paid by the government, should not be allowed to have other occupations or get paid for pensions, while they are working for the government. Last not least people would like to see when politicians who commit a crime would be jailed and lose their pension like any other person in the state.
Of course, a party like this would not be liked by other parties , but it would be loved by the people!
