Sunday, December 29, 2013

cuts

As Ireland braces itself for budget cuts, politicians cut secret deal for 3million euro a year budget increase

By KEN FOXE
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Exempt: Fine Gael finance minister Michael Noonan is set to slash and tax but TDs and senators seem immune

Dail deputies and senators have awarded themselves a €3m budget INCREASE for next year – just weeks after they secretly gave themselves an extra €14m to cover a massive overspend for 2011.

While almost every other State-funded service will find its budget cut next month, the Houses of the Oireachtas have simply awarded themselves extra cash to cover their own soaring costs.

Much of the €3m increase is to cover higher salaries and expenses for TDs and senators. But it also includes €750,000 to cover the costs of buying new office equipment – begging the question as to why new arrivals cannot simply use the same equipment as their predecessors.

The overall Oireachtas budget for 2012 will be €115.6m – an increase of €2.6m on the 2011 budget, which was set at €113m.

The amount paid out in salaries for TDs and senators will increase by €400,000 in 2012.

A total of €604,000 extra has been budgeted for members of the Dáil to cover the costs of setting up and running constituency offices, with an extra €53,000 allocated to the Seanad.

Politicians' travel expenses will also increase with an additional €408,000 earmarked to cover their journeys to and from Leinster House. Of that, €265,000 has been set aside for the Dáil, €52,000 for the Senate and another €91,000 for committee travel, most of it overseas.

The amount set aside to pay 'other allowances and expenses' for TDs and senators will be increased by more than €650,000. Overall, politicians' expenses for the year will rise by more than €1m, from €11.95m to €13m.

The salaries and wages of Oireachtas staff will rise by €738,000 in 2012. Their travel and subsistence budget will also rise, by €98,000.

And an extra €737,000 will be spent on office machinery and supplies, in part to help kit out the offices of newly elected politicians.

The increases will infuriate hard-working families who are about to see their pay packets raided again in next month's Budget, with average families expected to be hit for up to €1,000 a year in extra taxes such as VAT. Most people also expected to see major cuts in services as schools and hospitals are told there is no extra money in the national kitty.

Yet, astonishingly, the €3m budget increase for politicians comes just weeks after the Oireachtas quietly awarded itself an extra €14m after realising that it had massively overspent its 2011 budget.

This €14m emergency cash injection, which was not voted on or debated in public, came on top of the €113m that taxpayers had already stumped up for 2011 – but which the politicians had already spent.

Large amounts of the cash has been used to fund the giant pensions and pay-offs for disgraced former politicians such as Bertie Ahern, Brian Cowen and the Fianna Fáil-PD cabinet that destroyed the nation's economy.

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The extra €14m was 'announced' in the Dáil on September 27. But anybody sitting in the gallery – or even a TD in the chamber – got little clue that the Oireachtas was handing itself a huge cash infusion to cover its giant overspend.

Labour TD Jack Wall addressed the chamber shortly after 5pm and said: 'I move that Dáil Éireann take note of the supplementary statement of estimates not exceeding €13,963,000 required by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on December 31, 2011 in respect of ongoing expenditure, including a grant-in-aid.'

According to the record of the Dáil, no one spoke to the motion – if, indeed, there were even any TDs present – and the question was 'put and agreed to'.

There was no public debate as to why such a giant overspend had occurred or what measures had been put in place to ensure it was not repeated.

The Oireachtas insists the cash was needed to pay for the unexpected departure of scores of TDs and ministers, who each receive giant lump sums on top of their lavish pensions. The idea of telling the departing TDs and senators they would have to take a cut on their golden handshakes does not seem to have been entertained.

In all, a staggering €4.5m was paid out to cover the payments for 'former members of the Houses'.

A further €8.7m was approved to help offset the costs of the pension scheme of Leinster House politicians. And on top of that, yet another €5.4m also had to be siphoned off to cover redundancy costs for secretaries and staff who had worked for the TDs and senators thrown out by the electorate.

The Oireachtas said it managed to claw back some of that extra cash by making savings. An additional €19.27m had actually been required, but €5.3m saved in other areas helped reduce the impact for the taxpayer. However the most obvious saving – withholding or cutting back the payouts to politicians – was apparently never considered.

The Oireachtas said the reason the deficit had been so stark was because it had not expected an election until next year. A spokesman said: 'Provision was not made for elections when the estimate was submitted to the Dáil in November 2010 as the election was not scheduled at that stage until 2012.

'Basically, the Oireachtas had budgeted for an election in 2012 as this was the year that an election was due to take place. Because the election was held a year earlier, the Oireachtas required a supplementary estimate to cover this.'

The vast majority of the €14m related to payments and pensions for TDs, senators, and other staff who had lost their jobs after the election. But other areas underestimated included a small €90,000 shortfall in wages for catering and bar staff and €381,000 for televising parliamentary proceedings.

The Oireachtas said it was required by legislation to make a statement of estimates to the Dáil, normally in October or November.

It is drafted by the Houses of the Oireachtas Finance Committee, currently made up of Senators Paddy Burke and Marc MacSharry and TDs Frank Feighan, Dan Neville and Mr Wall.

The budget is then sent to the Oireachtas Commission, a larger cross-party group of politicians, for a final seal of approval.

The estimate – and any additional expenditure estimate – is then briefly mentioned in the Dáil before being sent to the Department of Finance to be signed off.

There is no opportunity for debating its contents outside of the confines of the closed meetings of the Oireachtas Commission. A spokesman for the Oireachtas said: 'The Commission approved a supplementary statement of estimates for €13.963m. The supplementary estimate was noted by the Dáil on September 27, then published on the Oireachtas website on the same day.

'The Oireachtas has not gone over budget. The Oireachtas works on a three-year budgetary cycle and the budget must be looked at over the full three years. Provision had been made for an election in 2012.'

The spokesman said spending on the running of Leinster House had decreased dramatically in recent years and defended the increased budget for 2012. He said there was a 'very low level of travel' because of the general election this year and that savings had been made during the 'dissolution period' of the Dáil when salaries and expenses did not have to be paid.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

quad

Rediscovering love: My 6-year-old and her quadriplegic dad

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CNN iReport

By Erin Hayes, Special to CNN

December 27, 2013 -- Updated 1345 GMT (2145 HKT)

The author with Ben and Izzy in 2011. Hayes says their daughter taught them how to be a family again.

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More than a disability -- he's Dad

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Erin Hayes' husband broke his neck on December 21, 2007
Their daughter, Isabel, was six months old
Isabel taught them how to be a family again, Hayes writes
Got a parenting story to share?Send it to CNN iReport

Erin Hayes runs a website for caregivers of those with spinal injuries. She first shared a version of this story on CNN iReport. Follow her on Twitter @werocktheyroll.

(CNN) -- Let me tell you about the amazing kid who lives in our house. She's 6 and she is the most hysterical, sarcastic, intelligent, funny, sweet, naïve, confident, strong, independent, considerate person I have ever met. I have no idea how she got to be this way.

You see, my husband is a quadriplegic. I care for him, I work full-time, and there are days when I feel like our daughter gets very little of my attention.

Isabel was 6 months old when her dad was injured. During her first six months, he was just OK at changing diapers and he had no fashion sense when it came to dressing her. But he loved feeding her and playing with her and those two spent tons of time together.

Then, our lives changed. It was December 21, 2007, three days before Isabel's first Christmas. At our annual Christmas party with our friends, around midnight, my husband decided to jump into the snow to make a snow angel. Why? Because he's Ben. I remember looking at him, smiling and shaking my head. He looked at me, grinned and ran out into the snow -- and never got up. He had broken his neck at the C4/C5 level and was paralyzed completely from the shoulders down.

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I do not remember my daughter's first Christmas. My parents and sisters spent it with her while I was in the hospital with my husband. I went from hugging and snuggling her before the accident to barely being able to look at her without crying. I couldn't even hold her because the responsibility of being a "single parent" in the physical sense was so overwhelming, I shut down. Every single minute of the day, I begged someone to fix my husband.

I remember one night in the ICU, the nurses got a rocker for me from the NICU and made me sit with Isabel in Ben's room. It was like they knew we needed time together, just the two of us. It felt very foreign to me for a very long time. I felt like her babysitter, not her mom. While I rocked her, I stared at her wondering how we were going to manage as a family and how unfair it was to her that we were putting her through so much.

My mom became Isabel's surrogate parent for almost eight months because I needed to focus on my husband. She was the one who got up with our daughter when she cried, and brought her to visit in rehab.

Looking back, it still hurts to know how much time I missed with my daughter. I missed her first steps. I missed her first words. I missed so much. And it took years until I could let that all go, until I felt like her mom again. I'm finally realizing how hard it must have been on my husband. He was no longer able to hold her. To help her. To play with her. He had to watch from the sidelines while everyone else took care of his child.

As new parents, you expect things to be difficult. But when dealing with a spinal cord injury, difficult doesn't begin to describe it. I went from caring for a 6-month-old with my husband to caring for a 6-month-old AND my husband.

I liked how things were before the injury. My strong, confident husband took charge and I followed. In a second, it changed. I had to be responsible for our family. I am always the first one up and the last one to bed. I am pushed to the limit physically, emotionally and mentally almost every single day. But it has made us stronger.

As we learned how to live our "new" life, things became easier. We developed a routine. We found our sense of humor again.

We worried about the relationship between Ben and Isabel. A lot. Every time she said that she didn't like him or want him around, we worried that it was because of his injury. We made a big deal out of it. We stressed about it. We talked to her teachers about it. We talked to a counselor about it. We thought that our daughter wouldn't connect with her dad because of his injury. It turns out we were wrong. Very wrong.

Isabel is your typical 6-year-old who just happens to have learned more about life than most ever do, one who will place her hands on my face and solemnly tell me, "Everything will be OK." Our daughter loves her daddy. She knows he's disabled. She knows he broke his neck. She knows there are limitations to what they can do together but trust me, they push the boundaries every single day.

She turns off his chair when he's in her room at night so he has to stay while she falls asleep.
iReporter Erin Hayes

More than once, she's come running to tell me that daddy got stuck in the mud or fell forward in his wheelchair or ran out of battery while on a walk. She's come to me crying because she bumped her head or arm falling from her daddy's chair when she was climbing on it, or riding in his lap, or jumping onto the couch from his chair. Too many times I've had to yell at both of them for chasing each other through the house; he in his chair and she on her scooter. Too many times I've had to tell them to STOP IT because they were about to get into trouble together.

She's figured out the best way to crawl into his lap to watch a movie. She climbs onto the counter so she can give him a kiss at night. She turns off his chair when he's in her room at night so he has to stay while she falls asleep. She puts clips in his hair and puts makeup on him to play dress up. She rolls her eyes when Ben tells a terrible joke and thinks it's hilarious when she tries to tickle him, even though he cannot feel it.

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Don't miss out on the conversation we're having at CNN Living. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for the latest stories and tell us what's influencing your life.

Isabel doesn't see Ben as a quadriplegic. She sees him as her father. She goes to him when she's sad. She celebrates with him when she's happy. His injury does not define their relationship. Their love for each other does.

Every day I get to see that love they share grow into something even bigger. She has taught me how to look past her dad's disability to see him for who he really is: my husband. The man I married. The man I love.

That little kid has taught me more about love and life in her six years than anyone ever could. She taught us how to laugh again. How to have fun again. How to love each other again. She was the one who taught us that life was worth living. I cannot wait to see else what else she can teach us as she grows.

Fw: Green and Red

From: Mayo GAA Blog

Sent: Friday, December 27, 2013 11:22 PM

To: thomaschambers@eircom.net

Subject: Green and Red

Green and Red

Echoes of 1951

Posted: 27 Dec 2013 07:29 AM PST

It's the time of year for reflection and so I'm delighted to welcome Akamore Man into the guest slot to provide some first-hand memories of the week he spent in Dublin in September 1951 to see the county claim its third All-Ireland title.

Photo: The Green Above The Red

Now that we have picked ourselves up and dusted ourselves down after losing another All-Ireland, I have been hearing echoes in my old head from the last time we won. That as everyone knows was back in 1951, sixty-two years ago. What a different place Ireland was then.

Living as I was then and, indeed, all my life on a farm. I have seen a lot of changes. I'm sure the young and, indeed the not so young, could not imagine living without electricity, running water, or central heating. Not to mention any TV, phones of any kind. No computer, no laptop, iPod, and all the gadgets young people now take for granted. Not everyone even had a radio, or wireless as they were then called. If you were lucky enough to live in a house that had one you wouldn't be let turn it on for the week before Mayo were playing in a big match, in case the wet battery went down.

Times were hard living on a farm in those days. The war was only over a few years. Rationing was just being phased out. In fact the last set of ration books were issued that year. Those books were never used. I think that puts into perspective the hunger there is in Mayo for an All-Ireland when you think that ration books were issued the year we last won.

We produced most of our own food. We worked six days a week, and we were lucky if we had the price of the pictures on Sunday night. Holidays were unheard of. They were something other people had. The only people who had cars were priests, doctors, teachers, and big shopkeepers.

One of my sisters (I had seven of them!) got married in October 1950, just after Mayo had beaten Louth in the All-Ireland. She and her husband Oliver were living in Dublin, and I was determined that if Mayo got to the final in 1951 I was going to be in Croke Park. Well Mayo got there after a struggle and I got them to invite me to visit them and Oliver promised to take me to the match.

Everything was falling into place. Now the big question was how to get there. Money was very scarce. I had an uncle living in Claremorris who went to all the big matches. I contacted him and he got me fixed up with a seat in a car. He had already been offered a seat to Dublin and he cadged a seat for me too.

Adventure

This was a very big adventure for me. Apart from a week I spent in hospital in 1945 when I got my appendix out, I had never spent two consecutive nights away from the house I was born in, nineteen years prior to this. I was determined if I got away I wouldn't be in any great hurry back. My father was impressing on me all the work that had to be done. I can tell you that I let it in one ear and out the other.

I had to cycle in to Ballyhaunis to meet the car from Claremorris. On my way there I called in on a neighbour in Aghamore. I knew that he went to the cattle market in Dublin every Thursday. I asked if he was going the following Thursday. The answer was yes. I asked if I could have a seat home with him. Another yes. I then asked if he would pick me up from my aunt's house in Chapelizod. My grandmother was living there at the time and I knew my neighbour often called in to see her. I left my bike with another aunt I had in Ballyhaunis and I met the car as arranged in the square.

I remember the car was an Austin A40. It was driven by Tom Keane. A son of his – JP Keane – played for Mayo later. I sat in the back with my uncle and another man whose name I have forgotten. It was my first time to cross the Shannon. I think that was a bigger adventure for me than when I first crossed the Atlantic on a flight to Canada in 1991.

My sister and her husband met me in Chapelizod and took me to their home in Brookwood Avenue, Artane. Their's was a new house. Oliver was a builder, he had built it the previous year. Everything was strange to me. I had never been in a new house before. I had lived all my life in a house built by my great-grandfather way back in 1873.

Croke Park

Next morning we got an early Mass in Donnycarney church and hit for Croke Park. There were no tickets at the time: you paid at the turnstile. I don't know how much it cost to get in as Oliver paid for me. We got there in good time. We were standing all the time in what I now think must be the Hill. We were right behind the goal posts, in the middle of Meath supporters. Oliver was a Louth man. We had beaten them the year before, so I don't think he had much sympathy for Mayo. He daren't say that out loud or he would have his wife and me to deal with!

I don't remember all that much about the match itself. Only that we won easy after a bit of a shaky start. Another thing I remember was that the Meath supporters were great sports. Of course they gave me a bit of harmless teasing, but it was all in good humour.

The next morning Oliver was gone to work when I got up. He had men working with him who left their bikes at his house and went off in the car with him. I soon took one of them out for a spin up Brookwood Avenue. When I got to the main road – I was later told it was called the Malahide Road – I was very surprised to find what looked like a big circle. I really didn't know what to make of it. I must have gone round it six or seven times on the bike. I thought it was great fun. When I got back to the house my sister told me it was called a roundabout. Oliver later told me that it was the first one in Ireland and it is still there. Little did I think that day that forty years later I would be driving a car round it.

On Monday evening I was taken to visit another aunt. She and her husband lived in Marino. When we were leaving I told her that I would see her again the next day. Next day I set off on the bike, did a few turns on the roundabout, and headed off down the Malahide Road. There was very little traffic: a few cars, an odd bus, and plenty of bikes. I found my way without any trouble. I think I visited her every day I was there. At night we went out to the pictures a few times.

On Thursday Oliver came home at lunch time and took me to Chapelizod. My neighbour picked me up as arranged, and we headed for home. When we arrived back in Ballyhaunis, my neighbour offered to put my bike in the boot and take me as far as Aghamore but I decided to cycle home. To tell the truth I was in no great hurry to get there.

Sam Maguire in Ballyhaunis

When I went to went to my aunt's house, I was told that Sean Flanagan was coming to town with the Cup that night. There was going to be a big bonfire in the square and a victory dance in the Parochial Hall. Of course I didn't want to miss all that. I asked my aunt if she could give me a bed for the night. Of course she could, after all I was her godson as well as her nephew.

Needless to say I enjoyed all the fun at the bonfire. Seeing Sean Flanagan hold up the Sam Maguire Cup is something I will never forget. We made our way up to the hall for the dance. I don't remember what band played that night. The hall was full and everyone was enjoying themselves. At one stage I felt a bit tired so I made my way up to the balcony for a sit down and a smoke. Everyone smoked at the time. I wasn't there long when a person sat beside me and asked me for a match. I looked up and who was there but the great Tom Langan. I thought I had died and gone to Heaven!

I had a good lie in the next morning, and it was well into the afternoon by the time I rolled in home. My father could not understand how I could stay away for a full week and all the work that had to be done. My mother told me later that every morning as he was getting up, he looked in to my bedroom to see if I had come home after they went to bed.

Those are some of the echoes I have been hearing for the past few weeks. While we didn't win Sam this year, I have no doubt that James Horan and his great team will do so in the near future. I will finish up by thanking the Mayo team, James Horan and his backroom crew for the wonderful year they gave us. Five great wins, one better than the other. Five days when we were all proud to call ourselves Mayo men and women.

This article first appeared in the 2013 edition of the Annagh annual magazine. Photo of 1951 ration book from Museums of Mayo.

Thomas Chambers' website

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