What McCreevy hadn't given the medical card to everyone?

Back in 2000 when Charlie McCreevy announced the plans for the extension of the medical card in Budget 2001 to all over 70s irrespective of income he was introducing it as the next step of a process by which the government had doubled the income threshold necessary to get the medical if you were over 70. The question we have to ask now is why didn't he stick with that idea, extending coverage in a progressive indeed aggressive manner but all the while based on income and ability to pay.

Charile Dec 6 2000 - Medical Cards for Older People In my 1999 budget, I announced that the income limits for medical cards for people aged 70 years or over would be doubled over three years, commencing in 1999. That process will be completed next March, and it is now proposed to take the next step. I am pleased to announce that, from 1 July 2001, entitlement to the medical card is being extended to all those aged 70 years or over.

What was wrong with simply progressively extending the threshold for the card and the benefits associated with it year by year? Oh I forget we were due a general election and McCreevy reckoned the older members of our society could be bought off. And if you look at the raw polling data he was dead right. Later today, I'm going to try and extrapolate why we might be now in terms of thresholds if McCreevy has stuck to his guns.

There's a hole in the budget, dear Brian. A hole!

So it seems the threshold for the over 70s medical card is to be raised again. And FF (or the cabinet at the very least) must be hoping that this will lower the temperature enough that they can get through the week without more people going overboard.

However, at first reading one has to ask if most of those receiving the benefit of the card will now retain that benefit then the government has close to 100 million of a hole in its budget calculations. To be added on to this is the possible/probably changes in the income levy, we're told that about 800,000 people who work don't pay income tax, but they would be paying the levy as it is on all income. So let's at a minimum scenario and presume they're all earning the minimum wage that means they could be paying €180 per year under the Lenny Levy. If all 800,000 were to be exempt from the levy that would be another €150 million missing from the budget. A hundred million here, a hundred and fifty million there and soon we'll be talking about real money!

Update: It does sound from the statement that the government has adopted the idea from Fine Gael that savings could be made in the drugs area by more use of generics. I wonder if the media will even notice or acknowledge this. Also it now appears the government is modifying the competition act in order to make it possible for it to negotiate with the IMO in future, that might work locally but what about European competition law. They really are making it up as they go along.

On the radio this morning

I'm due to be on the Joe Finnegan show on Shannonside / Northern Sound about 9.30am this morning, Oct 21st. You can listen live, I hope. I'm meant to be talking about the fit or suitability of our politicians as compared to their actual jobs but you never know. This is live radio after all.

Will Bertie be there?

So with the not unexpected announcement that pairs will be offered by FG only for those government TDs on actual proper business for the state, in this case the trip to China, the arithmetic for Wednesday's Dail vote on the Fine Gael motion starts to look somewhat interesting. For example, where will Bertie be I wonder? Is he even in the country? I've mailed them at his office to ask, I wonder if I'll get a reply. After all, I am a citizen, this is a republic, he still works for me, or is collecting a salary at my expense.

Possibly solution to the over 70s Medical Card mess

I'm talking out of turn here, but if anyone is interested in a practical solution to the over 70s medical card fiasco, there's my tuppence worth.

I might be asking a rather obvious question here but if the GPs charge the state €640 (the figure itself isn't really relevant at the moment) for giving people over 70 a level of card consistent with a medical card then shouldn't it be possible to set a number of bands of support and tailor the subvention from the state towards that 640 annualised figure that would relate to your income (we could look to factor in assets too but that would be really messy to administrate).

So let everyone under 17K (or whatever the annualised figure for the minimum wage is) per annum get 100% of that GP yearly charge paid by the state,
those between 17K and the average industry wage gets 75% of the figure paid by the state and pays 25% themselves (which at 100 odd quid for as many visits as you like isn't very bad value.)
Those at the 130% of the average industry wage pay 50%
those at 150% of the AIW pay 75% and
those on pensions over twice the AIW can pay the full whack or pay per visit.

I wonder if anyone will take the idea up, I've also no idea how much it would save. But this is the sort of pragmatic idea that our politics lacks. I believe that the government has acted in bad faith by removing the cover, but it also acted badly by providing the cover in such a profligate manner by giving the cover to all and sundry irrespective of income or wealth. I've long believed that the all or nothing status of the medical card is just plain wrong.

Perhaps someone from the department of finance might look to run the numbers...

Cowen on HIGNFY

Taoiseach Brian Cowen made an unexpected appearance in Have I Got News for You last night



Doesn't he just look like a little lost lamb?

Stop the lights, Bunny.

I've heard some nonsense in my time but this is really of the biscuit taking variety. Reported by the Beeb yesterday a council in Wales is switching off street lights. It's for the environment don't you know. Seriously. Just as an aside are the savings of 250K from the council budget.

Street lighting along with sewage, the police, fresh drinking water and the town crier (an early version of a mobile RSS feed, ask your granny) was one of the most basic services that local city authorities undertook to provide in the pre-Victorian era. Even the bloody Romans provided street lighting.

Live Blogging of Budget 2009

I know there's a good few others having a crack at this, but the more the merrier I say. You can do a sort of speed read of the previous budgets here as homework if you like.



NB: This is a kind of test run for me for other events. Feel free to add comments as I go along. Next time I will try and add other folks into the live feed itself using the panellists feature

Alternative budget proposals

With all the talking down of the budget prospects, I've been thinking about a few silver bullets of my own.

a) create an immediate slave caste from those under 5' 6" tall.

b) designate 1 in 40 taxpayers as 'the unfortunate b'stard', and impose a tax rate of 80% on all their earnings past and future.

c) create a new currency local to each county.

d) make the amount of spam you receive indicative of your 'net profile and tax accordingly.

e) tax people based on their site traffic. You know they must be making money somehow from it all even if they say it's not for profit.

f) a time based entry charge for those travelling south from the north while in possession of a GAA county jersey.

g) a charge for the temporary export of silverware. Might make those bearded lads think again about going for 2 in a row.

h) make language a revenue producer by rationing terms like 'property bubble', stagflation, resurgence.

i) nationalise 4x4s to be used to bring feral children to school.

j) charge those under 40 'an old geezer' levy to be written off by spending time listening to someone over 65 regale them with tales of the misery of the old days.

k) require licenses of people under 65 to complain about how the youngsters won't know what hit them.

Feel free to add your own suggestions.

Where did all the money go?

At this point, we all know that people in the financial sector (I think the technical term is fecking eejits) paid over the odds for assets that we now refer to as toxic. But where has that money gone? After all, if people paid excessive amounts for their stinky soggy ex-hot potato parcel and that parcel isn't worth what the buyer thought then at least the seller has the cash right? right?

The core issue we are being repeatedly told is that loans were given to people to buy their homes and these are people who can't now afford to make the repayments. Yet it is worth remembering that not all of those people will default and even those that can't make loan repayments will be able to pay rent which has to be worth something more than nothing.

In part I suspect that by painting the situation as bleak as possible serves to allows some people who are directly responsible for this way of doing business to pretend that there was nothing they could have done differently. That this is, in words all too familiar to users of the Irish health service, a system's failure. It's not, it's a failure directly attributable to those same individuals who were collecting the bonuses for how great they were doing. Those who made the decisions should be fired.

Does Sarah Palin read adult magazines?

Katie Couric asked Gov. Palin in the last few days what magazines and newspapers she reads and she wasn't able to name any. “Um, all of them, any that have been in front of me all these years.” Now, Sarah Palin studied journalism at college. Yet when called upon she can’t name a single newspaper, magazine, or periodical that she’s ever read.

Could it be that she was just embarrassed by her choice of reading material? But why? Then it hit me, was Gov. Palin suggesting in some very roundabout way that she reads adult magazines? I mean after all they are available in lots of good book stores across America even in Alaska. As has been noted down the years a few of those publications have some damn fine articles.

EU is none too pleased at how the Irish government acted - Sod'em!

Well, would you get her?
The EU seems miffed that the Irish government acted what they view as a unilateral manner to deal with the situation in Ireland vis-a-vis the banks. I've personally got a lot of qualms about the way in which the government's underwriting of the banks had been handled but one thing I don't have a problem with is that they didn't wait around for the EU to have a conflab about it. As McCreevy pointed out later on member states don't have the luxury of waiting forever and a day while Brussels ponders. In truth I sense the hand of McCreevy in all this, he was in Ireland on Monday and I suspect he was consulted at least to some extent on the options.

Potential flaw in local election expenditure limits

John Gormley's announcement that he is looking to establish spending limits for the local elections should be something to be widely welcomed. However from what he has said so far there are a few problems with the approach he is suggesting should be followed. He mentions one area of consideration "Should different amounts apply in elections for city and county councils, and town councils;". On the surface that seems a sensible distinction to make but that's not quite the case when you look at how it would play out on the ground.

The thing is that different counties have different ratios between councillors and voters. I'm using 2004 numbers for electorates but the comparison holds up. In Dublin city council for example the Artane Ward had an electorate of 26, 000 compared to Limerick Ward 2 which was only 9,000, both for 4 seats, both city councils. Or more extreme Ballinamore Co. Leitrim a 6 seater for just 6,000 voters as compared to Midleton a 6 seater in Co.Cork but for 40,000 people. Being a city, county or town council should not be the point of divergence in spending limits. In truth it must be linked to the number of people each candidate is seeking to represent. And in doing that it is likely that we will see a reopening of the can of worms that are issues of pay in proportion to the number of people being represented and perhaps too the fact that members of the Seanad are elected by councillors who represent varying numbers of people.

Couple this divergence in size with the absence of any reference to date to the use of publicly funded facilities by incumbents (photocopying in city hall can save a candidate quite a pretty penny in paper and printing costs in the lead up to an election campaign, especially when you know for certain the date of the contest) and you've got a recipe for a tidy little legal mess come next year. That isn't to say the topic shouldn't be gone into, just that it is about more than set caps on spending.

Eurovision to be fixed!

The folks behind the Eurovision have announced that they are to re-introduce jury voting to run alongside the popular votes. Hurrah, that should finally restore some much needed credibility to the world's premier kitsch fest. Might Terry come back?

N.B. I still reckon Sopho was robbed last year.

Jean Claude Van Damme as

Jean Claude Van Damme. I only became aware of this tonight via pop la femme chien. And it's absolutely brilliant!

Teaser below



and the Trailer is below

It's a tasty fish, I've nothing against it.

George C. Scott gives his views on carp. Yes, carp! I was attempting explain the magic of George C. Scott's voice to someone recently and used this as an example.



It is, in my view at least, a piece of cinema brilliance. And I can recommend Exorcist III for rental as an overly neglected and underrated movie. It's based on the actual book sequel to the Exorcist by William Peter Blatty and was directed by him. Honestly, the dialogue crackles along at a brisk pace and it is much more of a suspense movie and thrill ride than a horror.

On the subject of neglected movies, might I also offer The Hidden with Kyle McLachlan. It's an off beat cop movie/sci-fi mashup which I reckon has one of the best openings ever for a movie. "What'd he do rob a bank?". I've got a minor beef with Sky in that they keep showing the same films again and again on sci-fi when there are underrated classic, they could get for half nothing and show during the night for us to Plus and watch the following evening.

One of the weird but wonderful aspects of the 80s was that we were hit with a deluge of sub mainstream movies that never got close to being movie releases over here but which were quite passable of a dull winter's evening when we had no jobs or money.

It wasn't me!

It seems some eejit took it upon himself to rush the stage at the V festival when Oasis were playing and ended up shoving Noel Gallagher into a monitor speaker and damaged his ribs. Even more bizarrely for me it seems his name is Daniel Sullivan. Well, just for the record it wasn't me. I wish Noel a speedy recovery and that other bloke is right off the family Christmas list.

I will say that I have seen Oasis play, it was in Dublin at the Tivoli in 1994, good, good gig. First time I'd ever been offered way over the odds for a ticket as I'm going into the venue.

Who is running Alaska?

A big deal has been made of the demands of running Alaska in recent weeks. How it gives one such rounded executive experience. It naturally begs the question who is running the place right now while Gov. Palin is criss-crossing the lower 48 campaigning to be VeeP?

Hang on, it’s got to be the Lt. Gov - Sean Parnell right? but hang on a minute he’s in a slow death march of a count for the republican primary for a congressional seat. If he wins through there then he's got an election campaign for the congressional seat to work at between now and election day in Nov. So, if Alaska can be let on auto pilot for so long then is being Governor of the place really all that demanding? After all, if it's not a real full time job, if it is like a time share thing then how much worth can we put in doing it for 18 months before become your party's nominee for the vice-Presidency? The last Governor the US elected who wasn't a full time hands on type of guy was W. and look where that got the US.

Seriously, if McCain was really all that gone on executive experience then that nice Mike Huckabee chap was governor of Arkansas for over a decade and his views on many social conservative issues overlap with those of Governor Palin. And Chuck Norris had endorsed him so he had the gun club folks too.

A cinema giant passes on - and you won't know his face or his name.

Don LaFontaine the king of voiceovers has died aged 68. How can we go on "in a world where" this man can no longer guide us through the troubles of life and the power of imagination. This winter and next summer things will be just that little bit bleaker. That really was a voice to launch a movie, you can hear more here. Volume is a tad loud mind.

Things you hate to love

Caught this at the weekend* on Dave!, Stephen Fry talking about things you hate to love, like in his case, Darts! (the game/sport, not the band) and ABBA, and Georgette Heyer and gibberish and swearing. It was a fantastic concept for a show. I hope it was real and not one of those things that your brain does while you're sleeping. Read more here.

*I was tired, I'm writing a paper on something and I had nothing to wear so I stayed in, it happens.