Overseas Aid

ShooterSF

I can't see any discussion on this here. I have mentioned it in the AH super thread but felt it was worth discussing here. Yesterday it was cut by €100m. I haven't found what the actual figure remaining is but did read that a recent cut of €95m was approx 10% (link) of aid which would still leave €755m.

IF that's true it works out at 72,600 annual dole-payment (something people have complained we are spending too much on) in overseas aid or another way is that it would take 2,127,359 minimum wage earners 2% levy to pay this. Meaning we could easily have left those hit hardest out of the tax net.

My belief is that there are plenty of charities to give to if you feel so, so why should we be obliged to when we should be focusing on fixing our own problems first.

hellboy99

The money that government give to overseas aid should now be cut heavily or stopped completely until we get our own mess sorted.

Darkbloom

Ah yes, let's let people starve to death because we ****ed up.

What a disgusting attitude.

ShooterSF

Darkbloom wrote: »

Ah yes, let's let people starve to death because we ****ed up.

What a disgusting attitude.

There are plenty of charities out there for people to donate to.

Darkbloom

ShooterSF wrote: »

There are plenty of charities out there for people to donate to.

And do you think that they will right now when they're not awash in money?

Typical Irish begrudgery. It was ok for us to take the EU's money when we were dirt-poor in the 70s, but all of a sudden we should turn away and let people in dire poverty starve? Repulsive.

hellboy99

Darkbloom wrote: »

Ah yes, let's let people starve to death because we ****ed up.

What a disgusting attitude.

What about the families going hungry here, this country is too quick off the mark to help others before their own.

How many Irish charities have knocked on your door or posted leaflets through your letterbox in the last 6 months ? 90% of calls and leaflets here at my home in the last 6 months are all non Irish charities. "We need to send off money to build homes in Africa !", what about the homeless here and the thousands of Irish on the housing list :mad:

Charity begins at home.

ionix5891

Darkbloom wrote: »

Ah yes, let's let people starve to death because we ****ed up.

What a disgusting attitude.

i would rather my tax money go to help children who wouldn't not have a chance to survive past childhood in the worlds poorest countries (who are poor due to Irish/EU tarrifs and policies such as CAP which strangle trade)


than go the wasters on this forum who are moaning that they now would have to get a "dirty" job washing dishes instead of taking their holiday to some other country or spending the dole money on buckfast

hellboy99

We can't afford to be giving the amounts we once did, plan and simple, so you people that say we should not decrease or stop it for a period of time are not going to agree with that, our government is sending over EU borrowed money

ShooterSF

ionix5891 wrote: »

i would rather my tax money go to help children who wouldn't not have a chance to survive past childhood in the worlds poorest countries (who are poor due to Irish/EU tarrifs and policies such as CAP which strange trade)


than go the wasters on this forum who are moaning that they now would have to get a "dirty" job washing dishes instead of taking their holiday to some other country or spending the dole money on buckfast

But that's fine. We give you money back as we need less taxes. You want to give it to charity, fair play to you. Those that can't afford to though have life a little easier. I'm not suggesting we ban trocaire or something!

ArmaniJeanss

hellboy99 wrote: »

What about the families going hungry here, this country is too quick off the mark to help others before their own.

There is no need for anyone to go hungry with the incredible amount of safety nets provided in this country. If they are then they have a much bigger underlying problem with their financial management/lifestyle then anything caused by any recent budget.

hellboy99 wrote: »

How many Irish charities have knocked on your door or posted leaflets through your letterbox in the last 6 months ? 90% of calls and leaflets here at my home in the last 6 months are all non Irish charities. "We need to send off money to build homes in Africa !", what about the homeless here and the thousands of Irish on the housing list :mad:

Scam artists for the most part, everyone knows and its irrelevant.

hellboy99 wrote: »

Charity begins at home.

Horrible sentiment really. There will always be the concept of 15% 'most poverty stricken' in this country (this is just simple bog standard maths obviously) and it shouldn't be used to deny aid to genuine starving and helpless people in the developing world.

Darkbloom

hellboy99 wrote: »

What about the families going hungry here, this country is too quick off the mark to help others before their own.

How many Irish charities have knocked on your door or posted leaflets through your letterbox in the last 6 months ? 90% of calls and leaflets here at my home in the last 6 months are all non Irish charities. "We need to send off money to build homes in Africa !", what about the homeless here and the thousands of Irish on the housing list :mad:

Charity begins at home.

Are you living in a different world to me?

You can't compare poor in Africa to poor in any European country, even during a recession. Poor in Europe means you might struggle to pay your bills, but you're not going to starve to death unless there are other issues like drugs etc.

Poor in a lot of countries in Africa means that you're dead.

ShooterSF

Darkbloom wrote: »

And do you think that they will right now when they're not awash in money?

*bangs head on wall* That's my point people can't afford this. Those that can can still give voluntarily. It's even a win for freedom of choice.

Darkbloom

ShooterSF wrote: »

*bangs head on wall* That's my point people can't afford this. Those that can can still give voluntarily. It's even a win for freedom of choice.

riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Interesting how it's ok to bitch about poor people receiving money, but nobody's saying anything about some of the more "interesting" Budget developments, like the public sector getting to retire from 50 onwards.

hellboy99

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for overseas aid and help when I can, I give to Irish charities first, that's my own preference. Given my current situation I won't be in a position to give as much now, I just feel that given the times we now find ourselves we need to tighten the spending belt across the board and look after our own problems here first.

ionix5891

ShooterSF wrote: »

*bangs head on wall* That's my point people can't afford this. Those that can can still give voluntarily. It's even a win for freedom of choice.

i (via my company) paid 13K last month last month between corpo tax, prsi/paye


was i given a choice about whether i pay that in tax or give to charity?


reduce my taxes and then talk about cutting aid to the poorest people in this world, who as I said earlier are poor due to various trade barriers we put up and resulting economic and political instabilities

ShooterSF

Darkbloom wrote: »

riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Interesting how it's ok to bitch about poor people receiving money, but nobody's saying anything about some of the more "interesting" Budget developments, like the public sector getting to retire from 50 onwards.

Really? This is the only topic in this forum? People are discussing every aspect. :rolleyes:

ionix5891 wrote: »

i (via my company) paid 13K last month last month between corpo tax, prsi/paye


was i given a choice about whether i pay that in tax or give to charity?


reduce my taxes and then talk about cutting aid to the poorest people in this world, who as I said earlier are poor due to various trade barriers we put up and resulting economic and political instabilities

Perfect. That's my suggestion. Lower tax by saving €755m. But you can't reduce if first. It has be done together.

ionix5891

ShooterSF wrote: »

Really? This is the only topic in this forum? People are discussing every aspect. :rolleyes:



Perfect. That's my suggestion. Lower tax by saving €755m. But you can't reduce if first. It has be done together.

cut the dole by similar % as foreign aid and then I be happy

it boils my blood to see the wasters living of the dole, some were on it even in the best of times

ShooterSF

ionix5891 wrote: »

cut the dole by similar % as foreign aid and then I be happy

it boils my blood to see the wasters living of the dole, some were on it even in the best of times

I'm all for cracking down on abuse of the dole but I am of the opinion that we should take care of those in this country that are genuine cases ahead of foreign aid (not on the same footing)

Edit: Also you moved the goal posts on me from your last post

ionix5891

ShooterSF wrote: »

I'm all for cracking down on abuse of the dole but I am of the opinion that we should take care of those in this country that are genuine cases ahead of foreign aid (not on the same footing)

So the paying bills for some banker who lost his "job" after scamming this country is more important than feeding hundreds of young black kids

riiiggght, such a strong racists/nationalist smell here

sorry but i have great respect for the projects being caused by Irish Aid

while on the other hand i know way too many government artists painting the dole

as i said it boils my blood seeing my hard earned money going towards these people, just because they are Irish doesnt make them better than other human beings who are in deep **** thanks to our policies

Hobbes

Darkbloom wrote: »

Ah yes, let's let people starve to death because we ****ed up.

What a disgusting attitude.

I don't see how that is the case. If we have money we give it, if we don't then you use the money.

Everyone talks about doleys but the fact is the tax money goes to numerous places. For example we have over 120 special needs schools closing down at the end of the year and those children in them are being put into mainstream classes. We have others having to double up.

Yet you would prefer the money would go to a non-taxpayer?

Sorry but charity is all well and good but if you don't have the money to begin with what then is the answer?

ShooterSF

ionix5891 wrote: »

So the paying bills for some banker who lost his "job" after scamming this country is more important than feeding hundreds of young black kids

riiiggght, such a strong racists/nationalist smell here

sorry but i have great respect for the projects being caused by Irish Aid

while on the other hand i know way too many government artists painting the dole

as i said it boils my blood seeing my hard earned money going towards these people, just because they are Irish doesnt make them better than other human beings who are in deep **** thanks to our policies

*Ding* *Ding* Ding* We have a winner. God forbid we discuss foreign aid without the R word.

Yes corruption should be dealt with but it's a different issue. Both can be looked at. Dropping foreign aid does not mean we let corruption carry on. But why am I bothering, you have used the R word, I don't have much expectations of a proper conversation on the issue with ya.

edanto

/rolls up sleeves

Shooter I'm not going to stay long on this thread as I'm on my lunch. You will find a similar thread to this in the politics forum from the other week.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=59690962

To recap - we spend about a third of our national budget on Welfare - which is doing exactly as you suggest, helping the neediest in our country.

Are you suggesting that we should spend a bigger proportion on that? How much exactly? What should we spend it on? By the way, please be specific.

If we decided to go down the route you are suggesting of taking "care of those in this country that are genuine cases", how would you know that you had reached this goal? What things would you measure and record?

What standard of living should everybody that's on welfare be at before we eventually decide to help people living in poverty overseas?

Anyways, I think those are three questions that are tough enough to answer. If you are serious about your opinions, I hope that you'll take the time to answer them.

ionix5891

ShooterSF wrote: »

*Ding* *Ding* Ding* We have a winner. God forbid we discuss foreign aid without the R word.

Yes corruption should be dealt with but it's a different issue. Both can be looked at. Dropping foreign aid does not mean we let corruption carry on. But why am I bothering, you have used the R word, I don't have much expectations of a proper conversation on the issue with ya.

remind me again how many billion we gave to the banks?

your ignoring the big white elephant in the room

whats a few million (thats with 6 zeros) compared against few dozen billion (thats with 9 zeros) being spend on welfare and as much on public sector?

does that few 10ths of a percent of our taxes really gonna make that much difference being thrown at any of the following black holes of public sector, welfare and banks

ShooterSF

edanto wrote: »

/rolls up sleeves

Shooter I'm not going to stay long on this thread as I'm on my lunch. You will find a similar thread to this in the politics forum from the other week.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=59690962

To recap - we spend about a third of our national budget on Welfare - which is doing exactly as you suggest, helping the neediest in our country.

Are you suggesting that we should spend a bigger proportion on that? How much exactly? What should we spend it on? By the way, please be specific.

If we decided to go down the route you are suggesting of taking "care of those in this country that are genuine cases", how would you know that you had reached this goal? What things would you measure and record?

What standard of living should everybody that's on welfare be at before we eventually decide to help people living in poverty overseas?

Anyways, I think those are three questions that are tough enough to answer. If you are serious about your opinions, I hope that you'll take the time to answer them.

Hmm. No I think social welfare is apt. If anything we could do with more investment in health care (See cirvical(sp?) cancer issue). I have also seen my grandmother sitting in a hallway of a hospital for hours along with others. That's where the focus needs to go. After that I would be looking to get minimum wage workers and those earning say €9 per hour back out of our tax net.

The standard of living I would hope for is a house over your head good healthcare available to all and for people to be able to afford food, other essentials and if working still have some left over to feel like they're working to live and not vice versa.

I'm not sure of exact figures for all this but I definitely think people are not at that level atm.

Oh and thanks for an honest reply.

jimmmy

hellboy99 wrote: »

The money that government give to overseas aid should now be cut heavily or stopped completely until we get our own mess sorted.

Hear hear. The country is borrowing the guts of a billion euro to give to countries in Africa...it will be our children + grandchildren who will have to try to pay back that, with intererst.
Much of the money sent to Africa ends up with corrupt government officials there, not where its really needed. Giving people an aid mentality does not help them in the long term. I have travelled enough of the world to see that for myself.

ShooterSF

ionix5891 wrote: »

remind me again how many billion we gave to the banks?

your ignoring the big white elephant in the room

whats a few million (thats with 6 zeros) compared against few dozen billion (thats with 9 zeros) being spend on welfare and as much on public sector?

does that few 10ths of a percent of our taxes really gonna make that much difference being thrown at any of the following black holes of public sector, welfare and banks

Im not suggesting moving it to social welfare, the public sector (well other than improving hospitals) or banks. Those are annoying issues but they don't mean we can't deal with this one.

Demonique

hellboy99 wrote: »

What about the families going hungry here, this country is too quick off the mark to help others before their own.

Yeah, there are families going hungry here, going hungry not starving to death like they are in the developing world

K-9

Stop the "we are borrowing this money" line. We aren't. This was always spent.

OK, for those suggesting cutting it or abolishing it, why give it to private charities when many have high admin costs.

Maybe something that would actually really help Third World countries like give back our EU agriculture subsidies?