A service economy
On the topic of vindictiveness you only have to look at the fate of the Combat Poverty Agency. It was trying to highlight the systematic penury which due to structural inequalities persisted in Ireland even at the height of the so-called Celtic Tiger period. However, it was gradually starved of funds and has now been swallowed up by the Department of Social and Family Affairs where it will have no other identity except that of a bauble in the midst of a ministry headed by the Lady Bountiful who doesn’t believe anyone is entitled to any welfare payments, a stance in which she is supported by her senior well-paid officials.
I may have mentioned that the story about the ombudsman was nobbled. It was pushed off the top of the news – in fact the news altogether – by reports about how some government agency has identified 5 billion euro worth of public spending cuts. These will include a savaging of welfare payments. It won’t effect the members of the oligarchy and elite, who can be comfortable that their taxes aren’t going to the “work shy”. It will of course lead to an increase in mendicancy and probably an increase of those women and girls who will be forced to sell their bodies in order to make ends meet. Such an increase in supply will be music to the ears of the many senior civil servants, judges and members of the judiciary who frequently use such services – I could name names here. They’ll be delighted to have prossies who speak English instead of all of the foreign women they’ve had to deal with. But then some of these gentlemen’s tastes extend beyond women and girls.
