SOCCER pundit Roddy Collins has hit out at the government’s controversial new household charge, saying it’s “only” €2 a week if you live in an ivory tower.
Writing in An Phoblacht, the former Bohemians boss – now in charge of Monaghan Utd – described the charge as unfair.
He said: “Enda Kenny makes me mad. His claim that the household charge is “only” €2 a week had me boiling. I have no problem with taxes – my problem is with unfair taxes and the unfair distribution of the burden.
“The top 5% own 40% of the wealth but everyone gets hit with a flat-rate tax of €100. It’s unjust. ’Only’ €2 a week is still €100 out of your pocket. If you’re on the money Enda and his advisers are getting (the Taoiseach gets €200,000 a year), it is ‘only’ small change but to people in Cabra, where I grew up, and many other places, a hundred quid makes a difference.
“A hundred quid still means a lot today. There are still people out there struggling badly. People living in the ivory towers have lost touch with reality and don’t appreciate the impact this sort of thing has on families worrying about how to pay bills and mortgages.
“Can you imagine the response from almost any family if you’d knocked on their door in the run-up to Christmas or even now and said ‘Here’s €100 or here’s a food hamper for a hundred quid’? It would make a massive difference. It wouldn’t only be welcome but for an awful amount of people it would be necessary.
“I can afford €100; Enda Kenny can afford €100; bankers can still afford €100; many people can’t. Enda Kenny’s ‘only’ €2 a week smacks to me of Marie Antoinette’s ‘let them eat cake,’” wrote Collins.
Read Roddy’s full column in An Phoblacht.
