Money, money, money is the theme on today’s broadsheets as the rags bring us more news of how the ordinary taxpayer is continually being shafted by those who have already brought the country to its knees.
The Sunday Independent leads with the revelation that NAMA, rather than being a means of cleansing the banking system of the huge amounts of debt it has acquired over the years, in fact solely functions as a bailout for beleaguered builders and developers.
As some of the country’s leading banks, including EBS and AIB head ever closer towards nationalisation, NAMA chairman Frank Daly announced that the core objective of the Asset Management Agency will be “to recover from the taxpayers whatever it has paid for the loans in addition to whatever it has invested to enhance property assets underlying those loans. It is expected that NAMA will have a lifespan of seven to ten years and when it has achieved its core objective, it will be wound upâ€.
Granted that technical babble is a bit hard to digest but the the Sunday Indo have done it for us, suggesting that Daly’s comments mean that developers, including the ten largest who owe a staggering €16 billion, will be expected to pay back only half of what they owe.
The Sunday Times leads with reports of anger amongst government backbenchers over the proposals to cut welfare benefits for single mothers that were announced under the radar on Friday night.
The proposals suggest that single mothers will cease to receive payments when their youngest child reaches the age of 13. Presently, single mothers receive payments until their youngest child is 18, a figure which increases to 22 if that child is in full time education.
The proposals have been met with outrage by numerous backbenchers and by Irish Congress of Trade Unions president Jack O’Connor, who labelled the proposals ‘reprehensible beyond belief’.
The minister of the Department of Social Protection, Eamon Ó Cuiv, has defended the proposals on the basis that they won’t come into effect for current claimants until 2016. Lobby groups, however, have expressed fears that the age of thirteen is only a starting point as when the measure was first proposed in 2006, a starting age of seven was envisaged.
