IMF want welfare payments cut, minimum wage slashed

George Dillion, your comment is ill-informed. Scapegoating the poor or immigrants is typical of the socio-payhic mind set. If there is fraud in the benefits system, it is miniscule in comparison with the fraudulence of Irish Governance and Irish Banking. The Irish banks AIB, BOI and Anglo Irish, borrowed 500 billion from the ECB and others, and used that money to gamble on the International Derivatives Market and on corrupt land development schemes. The Irish Government could guarantee their High Street Deposit customers, and that would cost 20 Billion Euros.... and let those banks fail.... let them pay the price of their own actions.... face the consquences of their gambling (for which the Irish bankers paid themselves a handsome 'comission'....) And let me assure you, that AIB were caught red-handed STEALING cash from high street customers accounts over a 30 year period. They are rotten to the core, and it's rude and disengenious to scapegoat those at the 'bottom' of Society as a way to protect the Powerful... the same people who protected the Vatican from civil litigation and criminal prosecution are protecting the Irish banking sector and abusing the victims.

Further to my note below, I read today that the Irish government believes it can cut down 5000 million euros in welfare fraud by adopting prudent measures to monitor thieves and fraudsters, native and foreign. Isn't it amazing that this is only occurring to them now? Why don't they inform the EU that the Irish taxpayer can no longer pay child benefit for children in Latvia, Estonia, Poland etc., many of whom have NEVER been in Ireland? And of course that assumes that these children exist, and that Pavel is not just screwing the Irish welfare system by claiming to have 14 children back in the old country. "How many was that, Pavel? Fourteen? Oh fine, here's your check for two thousand euros. Have a good flight home, we'll see you again next month. Say hello to the kids for us!"

Your hand outstretched asking for more money please, has consequences.

If you lower minimum wage you have to lower welfare, otherwise you diminish the incentive to work. In a normal society I would be 100% against lowering welfare or minimum wage, but in the Irish case a lot of the welfare is going to welfare frauds from Africa, Poland etc. The money is in many cases not going to help Irish workers who have lost their jobs, it's going to pay parasites from Poland, who often don't even live in Ireland but fly in once a month to collect their welfare and then fly back to Poland. For many months I have been posting that Ireland is the most misgoverned country in the world, equalling or surpassing Zimbabwe. The events of recent days show I was 100% correct.

You mean to tell me the Government has an Economic Adviser?! God help us! What's he been doing?! "It will be OUR OWN budget!" he says. DO THEY STILL NOT "GET IT?"