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The Telephone Allowance ,

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  • 15-05-2010 7:43pm
    #1
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭


    This is a subsidy paid by the taxpayer...mainly but not exclusively to eircom.

    The taxpayer now pays for at least 1 out of 4 residential lines and the % is increasing inexorably.

    These are the totals across telephone lines, cable and mobile.

    http://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2009-11-24.1804.0&s=%22telephone+allowance%22#g1806.0.r
    Customer Numbers (cost)
    2004 297,967 (€86m)
    2005 311,353 (€89m)
    2006     318,828 (€90m)
    2007 327,336 (€98m)
    2008     351,924 (€112m)

    If the rapid jump in 2008 was replicated last year it is now (at a GUESS)

    2010 May 381,000 (€126m)

    of whom

    http://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2010-02-16.1968.0

    36,000 get the subsidy for a mobile phone not a landline or cable leaving (at GUESS)

    345,000 between telephone and cable of whom I would surmise no more than 15,000 are cable ( pro rata the 60,000 telephony customers they have) .

    This implies that the number of phone lines paid for by the taxpayer is now as high as 330,000 out of around 1.2m residential lines. That is 27% of lines.

    I really must brief O Cuiv on the leverage he.....more than the idiot in communications who does not even have a budget of €126m every year....holds over eircom :D

    I understand from enquiries and a recent reference here that around 50,000 are in receipt of carers allowance nowadays, (three times the number who qualified only 3 years back :eek:) that the carers allowance accounts for a lot of the increase in those qualifying for the telephone allowance.

    Furthermore the carers allowance is OFTEN claimed by a husband for a wife and for a wife by a husband and that household then gets two Telephone Allowances ....like WTF :( Sometimes it is claimed for a kid 'each' by husband and wife, again 2 allowances. :(
    One qualifies for the free phone even if the household income is as high as :eek: €60,000 :eek: per annum as long as someone is doing a spot of 'caring' somewhere.

    A granular breakdown of 2004 to 2007 is available here.

    http://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2009-06-11.382.0&s=%22telephone+allowance%22#g386.0.r


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