Here is the whole article,would be very interested to see what others think of it;
While the Celtic Tiger roared,
Brian Condra, 37, and his wife, Rosie, 36, invested in a modest home and raising their three children. Brian works as a porter at
Beaumont Hospital in
Dublin. Rosie is a nurse in the
Lourdes Hospital in
Drogheda.
They borrowed within their means, skipped foreign holidays and harboured hopes of university educations for their children, Josh, 4, Jacob, 3, and Jill, who is one. Brian Condra tells how they were already struggling to live on their joint gross annual incomes of just over €60,000 when last week the Government rewarded their frugal lifestyle by pushing the family into the red. This is their story, as told by Brian:
"We never 'felt' the Celtic Tiger. We bought our house in Drogheda in November 2005. It was an old corporation house on a corporation estate. It has a scullery kitchen and we still don't have a proper one. Everything happens in the sitting room. We got a mortgage for €190,000.
We never felt the house was really worth it. Back in 2005 we could see that the property market was about to fall on its face. When the banks were encouraging us to take a mortgage of €350,000, we went for as low a mortgage as we could. We were fortunate that we did. We have friends who now, through one of them losing work, are facing the possibility of their homes being repossessed.
The first few years we were married, we were meeting our mortgage repayments, making sure it was paid every month and trying to get little bits and pieces done to the house. We concentrated on that and on the children.
We always wanted a car, but never really felt we could afford one. Instead of putting money towards a car, we wanted to put money towards the kids. We were never in a situation where we could do both. This year was supposed to be the first year that we were go to go on a family holiday. We probably would have gone to
Wales or somewhere in
Ireland, but that's gone now.
At this point in time, we are finding ourselves going under. Before the pension levy was introduced in December, we came out with probably in the region of €300 a month that we could play with. Since December's Budget, we are down roughly between €350 and €450 in any given month, depending on what overtime I can get in Beaumont Hospital.
That's only with the pension levy and the one per cent income levy, and before we take into account the Budget last week.
We are both going to be hit with the two per cent income levy, the four per cent health levy and the higher PRSI contributions. If children's allowance is taxed, we will be hit on that too.
I get paid every two weeks. My last wage slip was for €1,109 before tax. On top of that I got overtime of €170 and €184 for double time. After all the tax deductions, I came out with €1,124 for two weeks. That would be on the higher end of what I would normally get. Rosie's basic pay was €1,571 a fortnight prior to the pension levy. In the last pay cheque they took €131 for the pension levy.
We haven't yet sat down and looked at how Tuesday's Budget is going to affect us. At this point in time we are now looking at the possibility of taking our eldest child out of playschool because we can't cover the cost of it, what with all of our other outgoings, our mortgage, feeding the family and child-minding and travel for me because I have to get a bus to Dublin for work.
The pre-school is €35 for a morning and we were sending Josh there three mornings a week. We cut it back to one and now we are looking at cutting it out altogether. Our outgoings for child minding were €300 for the three children two days a week -- €50 per child -- and that was when Rosie managed to roster her shifts so that she would have two days at home with the children. The children's allowance didn't cover it. That came to €250 per child every three months or €750 every three months.
We can still manage to cover the mortgage, but have to curtail everything else. Our mortgage repayments are €1,200 a month and our life assurance is about €42 per month.
Interest rates have come down and we do have the option of availing of that, but we are trying to pay as much as we can. The reason is I have a fixed-term contract in Beaumont Hospital.
Thanks to
Brian Lenihan's stunt of cancelling all fixed-term contracts, there is a strong possibility that when my contract runs out I won't have any work. So we are trying to keep the mortgage payments up as high as we can.
If we do eventually find ourselves in a position where I don't have work, we want to be a little bit ahead of where we should be. That way, we might be able to get some leeway from the bank.
We don't want to go into massive debt in the future -- that is our big fear at the moment.
We are looking at every way we can to cut costs without affecting the children. At the end of the day, you should have an expectation to be able to look after your children. We would have shopped predominantly in
Dunnes Stores. We were into buying Irish.
We haven't gone up North (to shop) because we don't have a car, but we have taken to shopping at places like
Aldi and Lidl.
We have had to curtail our bins. We were paying a yearly bill for the bin collection of €290. Now we are looking at the prospect of scrapping that. We are going back to the tag system, squashing every thing into fewer bins.
These things put so much stress on you as a couple. I love my job.
Beaumont is a brilliant place to work. But coming home, I'm thinking, am I going to have a job this day next week or am I going to be let go. I'm carrying that burden home. And the same for Rosie.
If I lose my job, even if we cut the mortgage down we still won't be able to cover the repayments. Even if I retain my job and the next Budget comes in with more increases in tax, we are going to be in that situation anyway. Our biggest fear is losing our house. It doesn't seem to matter which way you look at it, there is no light on the horizon.
The Government says the cost of living has come down. If it has, we haven't noticed it. Our wages have come down in between and there is no benefit that I can see.
At the end of the day, we will endeavour to pay our bills and pay our debts, like most people.
That's the difference between the common person on the street and the developer who is constantly getting bailed out. The average man or woman on the street pays for them.
I am very angry, first and foremost at the banks. The banks acted so irresponsibly. Myself and Rosie went out, worked, we did our bit for society, we paid our taxes, never broke the rules, never broke the law. In terms of work, we abided by the agreements that were hammered out by the social partners. We have done nothing wrong. Yet we find ourselves in a situation where we are being asked to pay, as if we had done something wrong.
Meanwhile, the people who have created the problem -- the banks and the developers -- seem to be getting away scot-free.
I think, at best, the Government has shown itself to be blissfully unaware of the realities of life in modern Ireland.
I don't think that's a surprise when you have a Taoiseach who is paid the amount he is paid. He talks about feeling the pain . . . for me to work, I have to take a bus from Drogheda. That costs me €300 a month. That's an expense that I pay and I pay it willingly because it means I have a job.
Here we have TDs sitting in
Dail Eireann lauding themselves as heroes because they have taken a 10 per cent pay cut. I find it offensive that they think a 10 per cent pay cut from a huge wage is some kind of big deal.
Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan don't seem to understand that they belong amongst the mega rich. They are not going to lose their homes. Their children will get to go through school and they will get to go to college.
Our greatest hope for our children is that they would get to go to college . . . We are now facing a future where they may not.
We are facing a very bleak situation. We are almost scared to sit down and figure out how we are going to afford things because we know we are going to come up against a brick wall."
