According to the latest official figures and on a County level, North Tipperary is 7.5 per cent below the national average with regard to disposable incomes, per capita for 2007.
The figures show that the North of the County is faring worse than the South. In North Tipperary the average is €20,589 per person while in south Tipp the average disposable income is slightly better at €21,148.
According to latest figures from the Central Statistics Office the national average for 2007 is €21,694.
Chief executive of Irish Rural Link (IRL) which is the national network campaigning for sustainable rural communities, Mr Séamus Boland, said that the figures showed spending on rural infrastructure and local services should now not be cut. He further stated that this official bulletin highlighted the need for investment in infrastructure and training.
Welfare
People in Dublin fared best with just over €24 thousand disposable incomes while Donegal had the lowest at just over €18 thousand
This report comes as the recent Child Benefits cuts announced in the budget come into force this month.
Fine Gaels Deputy Noel Coonan said a loss of €16 per month may not mean much to Government Ministers but is a vital lifeline for countless North Tipperary families suffering Child Benefit cutbacks from the beginning of this month.
Deputy Coonan said:
“Families have already seen the loss of the entire Early Childcare Supplement and now more cuts are hitting their pockets from last week in the form of Child Benefit cutbacks. Meanwhile, this Government ensures senior management public sector workers escape the full brunt of pay cuts introduced in December’s budget. Cleaners in Government offices face a larger pay cut than senior civil servants. It is crystal clear this Government is shielding top civil servants while ordinary folk and lower paid public servants suffer. Fine Gael fought tooth and nail against cuts in Child Benefit. This is a vital payment for families and it should not have been targeted. The Government is putting bankers and developers ahead of children. Fine Gael has repeatedly said there are much better ways of making savings across the public finances, and the best way of getting the social welfare budget down was to get people back to work. Yet the Budget did nothing to stimulate job creation and get people off the dole queue. It failed to help unemployed people and Fianna Fail failed to implement our constructive proposals.
The tax take for 2009 was some €10 billion less than projected at the time of the Budget in 2008, and €1.4 billion less than at last April’s Emergency Budget. These figures unfortunately do not indicate a positive turning point in our economy, despite Government assurances that we are turning a corner.
“Fine Gael is committed to this task of transforming public service delivery, which must include, converting public infrastructures into competitive, state-of-the-art networks, fixing a broken political and regulatory model, sweating sectored opportunities that are open to Ireland, getting banks to start lending again to consumers and businesses.” continued Deputy Coonan.
Just want to wish Michelle the very best of luck on the All Ireland Talent Show! We’ll have our fingers at the ready to vote for you! No doubt you can do for Tipp and the South!