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DRAFTING IRELAND’S ANNUAL budget is a “tough experience”, Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton has said – and the discussions on next year’s budget will be difficult.
In an exclusive interview with TheJournal,ie, she said:
This will be my third budget, and it’s – put it this way – a tough experience.
But the discussions will be difficult. But certainly last year and the previous year I was able to persuade people and got the support of my colleagues in cabinet to take a reforming approach to social welfare which also maintained basic incomes from social welfare
She would not be drawn on the specifics, but said she will be “going through all of the figures in great detail”. “And I think as well, my colleagues will recognise the reforms in social welfare, the success in getting people back to work.”
She said that pulling very large spends out of the Irish economy would make deflation deeper.
Europe
Burton recently wrote a piece for the Guardian newspaper with László Andor, Pervenche Beres, Yves Leterme and Henri Maloose. “Basically saying that Europe as a whole, not just Ireland, has to reflate its economy and it has to get people back to work,” is how Burton put it.
Europe has faced crises before, like the time of the great recession and economies recovered when people got back to work and banks began to function properly in terms of giving credit to businesses. So the budget discussions will take place against a backdrop of Europe’s dawning realisation that, hey, austerity is not the only way.
“There is a rethink going on,” said Burton.
Last year her department overshot its deficit target, and Burton said she doesn’t know what the outcome will be this year. “We have to be cautious and careful,” she said. “We are hoping to be able to go back to financing ourselves on the financial markets at a reasonable price.”
So we are making progress slowly but we need a European economy where Europe itself invests in economy and if it does then that will be a really positive backdrop to Ireland recovering.
She said that “what people want is fairness and what they want is to ensure that particularly people with broader shoulders would bear more of the burden. But of course the people with the broader shoulders and the money, they often are the people to say ‘why me?’”. Of the budget cuts, she said:
In fact, we’ve tried to do what we’ve had to do in a very, very fair way.
Defaulting
Burton pointed out that she was one of the people who strongly opposed the bank guarantee: “I just thought what we did was an incredibly expensive way to go about something that was going to be very expensive anyway”.
I think we ended up costing ourselves probably twice or three times as much as it should have cost us because a bank collapse is never cheap in any country.
She said the level of social welfare abuse “is relatively low” but that in a budget of €20 billion, even 3 per cent of people abusing it amounts to millions of euro.
She has been trying to send out three messages around social welfare:
Jobs
(Thejournalvideo/YouTube)
Minister Burton had strong words to say about new jobs being created in Ireland, saying that as they arrive here, she wants “that the focus is equally on people in the live register”.
One of the thing that upsets me as a minister, is that sometimes people don’t see the resource that the live register is of our fellow citizens. And if we could get more people who are on the live register taking up jobs that are being announced, well then social welfare would come into balance itself.
She said that she has been very careful as a minister to do a lot of reform, and the fact this is being done on less money “is a significant achievement”.
I think we’ve done and we achieved a lot of good work. However we still have a problem with the banks, we still have a problem with people who are indebted. And in terms of my own portfolio, on a weekly basis I see the figures, the 290,000 people who are not working at all, and who want to work. And that certainly inspires me to do the job with all the determination and whatever capacity I have to bring to the job.
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An encouraging, if small, first step out of the shadows
Encouraging, come on get real. We take one small step forward and powers that be in europe punches us right in the face and knocks us 3 steps back against the wall.
can anyone explain to me why it is seen as an overwhelming national objective to return to the bond markets?
Do you want to live with your mom for the rest of your life. Basically
Bit like a hungover alcoholic getting into an early house.
Taking your question at face value…
The idea is that if we can get back to the bond markets, then we don’t have to borrow from the EU or IMF – and we therefore don’t have to follow their terms and conditions for it.
Naturally it would be best if we didn’t have to borrow from ANYWHERE, but in the climate we’re in we have to borrow from SOMEWHERE, and the reason we have to live under the Troika’s thumb is simply because they won’t give us the money unless we agree to follow their rules on how we can spend it.
We need to get back to spending less.
It means a hit to our lifestyles though.
Are people willing to take that?
No, they have gotten too soft.
Recent exuberance of bond markets, which has seen bond yields decline in periphery nations, would appear to be driven by Draghi’s looser monetary policies. The danger here is this inflationary approach could take on a life of it’s own and herald a new phase in the crisis.
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-22/draghi-makes-euro-favorite-for-most-profitable-carry-trades-with-rate-cuts
Just posted this on another thread but I think its probably as relevant here. For those confused and distracted heres a documentary on whats actually happening : http://youtu.be/hEw7p5W-hM8
So much for the scaremongering by the dame & it’s bitchs . Bond dealers would eat chips out of anybody’s knickers, so to speak, Irrelevant of the wearers past.
i think you’ll find that this comment makes no sense! of all days today is when we prove that we will repay debt?! and the market then opens up to us…… but this somehow proves your point how??
I agree Rob your comment makes no sense at all.
Obama is sending a trillion dollar note to bail out Europe, monty burns will deliver it in the spruce goose.
did you ever see the film million pound note 1950 s explains it all
It’s a sad thing when having to borrow money is seen as good news.
We HAD to borrow before this. The news is that we CAN borrow now. I thought the article made this very clear.
:)
lol, maybe by the time those bitches mature the euro will be worth fu*k all so we will pay them back in 10000 euro notes
Kicking the can down the road. We’ll have the same problems in 2015, only difference is we’ll be deeper in debt.
How can we borrow we are shafted until 2031 we will be sold out yet again
Does that mean the department has lost that 3.6 billion AGAIN they found down the back of the sofa a while ago?
Ireland should start doing the lotto.
Love it Cairo pmpl
No, you’re hilarious Eileen.
This is very good news. Amazing how all the burn everybody crew aren’t in here denouncing the NTMA for making a deal with bondholders.
Ha ha ha …You are hillarious Donal.
So we swapped 1 bond for another , so what ! We were sold out yesterday and every day ,
I still say we should stand tall on our own take or knocks and build ourselves up as an independent
nation and not as one of the islands off the coast of Europe .
We are no way near being solvent.
Enda is just licking up to his puppet masters.
have your say