Irish Citizen’s letter to EVERY minister in the Government

“Dear Minister,
I am a typical Irish citizen, I’m 41, I work full-time as a bar
manager, I pay my mortgage each month with my partner for my little
terraced home in the border town of Dundalk, I pay my taxes (even
though our roads are falling apart, my local hospital is all but
closed, our health services are in crisis, our schools continue to
under-perform and our overstretched law enforcers can barely cope or
care about our frighteningly lawless streets) my PRSI contributions
(for what it’s worth….. nothing) and my universal social charge ( a
thinly disguised second tax aimed at the vulnerable). I pay a pension
though don’t dare check if it’s worth anything, I’ve never been
arrested or even cautioned by the Garda, I don’t take drugs, I don’t
smoke, I take an occasional drink, I’m not religious, I use a bicycle
instead of a car because insurance costs border on criminal, I have a
dog (for which I have to pay a license for), I watch too much TV (for
which I pay a TV license AND a sky subscription for the same
channels), I’m just a Irishman trying to get on in life.

That’s who I am…..

You are the Government of Ireland, the elected representatives of the
Irish people, there to protect us, to look out for us, to shelter the
weak and vulnerable and punish the wicked….

I am ashamed to be Irish, and it’s your fault.

I don’t feel like I’m part of an Irish Democracy, and it’s your fault.

I am supposed to be a citizen, a CITIZEN of Ireland, but instead I
feel like a Serf, working and occupying a plot of land owned by a lord
of the manor in return for protection and justice, except I don’t feel
protected at all, either physically, financially or politically. I
work to pay your bills, I toil to cover your mistakes, I go without so
you can continue living the lifestyle you’ve grown very accustomed to.
You used OUR money to pay for the Banks’ mistakes without asking our
permission, money which the banks now won’t lend back to us to start
up small businesses, to send our children to college, to treat
ourselves to a much needed break from the rat-race. OUR money. You
give away our natural resources and then use OUR money to pay Garda to
become private security officers for Shell Oil, beating on us when we
exercise our right to protest. OUR money. You squeeze our wallets,
take more money out of our pay checks, our dole, our disability
allowances, ignore ever-increasing mortgage rates, and yet you’re
considering putting up our VAT rate (an almost unbelievable disregard
for the already-struggling small businesses in every border town,
especially coming up to Christmas), introducing property tax when over
100,000 home-owners cannot pay their mortgages, introducing water
rates (In September, 2010, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a
resolution recognizing that the human right to water and sanitation
are a part of the right to an adequate standard of living. If I can’t
afford to pay my water bill, do you, my Government, cut my water
supply, thus ignoring my human RIGHT to have access to safe drinking
water and sanitation)…..

It seems never-ending, this constant financial worry that YOU have
burdened US with. YOU have an average pay check of €112,000 and
pensions of over €8.8 million, whereas I cannot buy home-heating oil
without begging on bended knee to the credit union. I am angry, very
angry, ashamed, confused, lost.

I have no-one to represent me, the law-makers don’t care, the Judges
don’t care, the doctors don’t care, the nurses, teachers and Garda are
too over-worked and under-paid to care, the TDs don’t care (my local
TDs seem to only to appear when there’s a ribbon to be cut or an art
exibition is laying on some free wine & cheese….. I wonder how many
of them will be smiling for the local cameras when our over-budgeted
revamp of Dundalk’s town square is officially opened, while our
hospital is virtually closed to a population of almost 30,000).

I, like almost every Serf of Ireland, am sick of your antics, your
scheming ways and your financial ineptitude. You may wish to blame
your last incarnation of Government for all your shortcomings and all
our woes, just as they blamed the Government before them, but mark my
words, we can only be bullied and lied to and robbed and pushed so
far…..
Yours etc…”