Sir, – At the time of year when various NGOs and other bodies come out with suggestions in advance of the budget, I believe it’s time for someone to speak for those of us in the middle of our lives and careers who will pay for the proposed new schemes and get no utility from them.
Those of us in our 40s and 50s are the forgotten generation when it comes to budget time. While we see schemes being proposed for the State to take over the payment of childcare (“State paying childcare sector wages would be key step in meeting €200 per month pledge”, Home News, September 2nd) those of us whose children were born in the late Celtic Tiger era have missed out on this, the free GP care, the hot meal schemes for schools, the free schoolbooks schemes etc, and now face no reduction in third-level fees (despite promises). Having funded all these things privately, we are once again being told to “suck it up” by the Government.
The generation whose children are now at third-level age are the ones that bought their houses during the Celtic Tiger, those who were the first to experience the huge growth in house prices (to the benefit of the older generations) and the catastrophic fall that came with the economic bust, lumbering them with negative equity, large mortgages and debt levels never seen before in Ireland. (Those who CMAT sings of as the “mam and the dad” in Euro Country).
Those kids of the Celtic Tiger are now the third-level students, and the parents continue to suffer. Not just the fees and having missed out on all the child-based programmes, but also seeing the lack of foreseeable chances for those kids getting a home of their own in the near future. And as for having spare money to put into Simon Harris’s new savings scheme – well, good luck with that.
Is it not time the Government did something for this forgotten generation in the budget? – Yours, etc.
RORY J WHELAN,
Beaubec,
Drogheda,
Co Meath.