get ready for years of 'penal servitude'

A SINGLE adult will be allowed less than €30 a week to participate in sports activities and social events such as going to the cinema, according to austere insolvency guidelines.

An estimated 100,000 households will be told to live in what Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin has described as the "fiscal equivalent of penal servitude" for between three and seven years.
Critically, the guidelines state that any decision to be made about the "reasonableness or otherwise" of living expenses under 15 separate categories will be a matter for "the creditors" to decide on a case-by-case basis.

Banks, therefore, will have the final say on what thousands of heavily indebted individuals and families will be allowed to spend on what are widely accepted to be household basics if they wish to avail of debt relief, settlement or personal insolvency.
Under the guidelines, a single adult is to be prescribed per month: food (€274.04), clothing (€35.73), personal care (€33.73), health (€31.09), savings and contingencies (€43.33).

When published next month, the insolvency guidelines are likely to create a political storm for the Government, and huge difficulty for Labour in particular, after it suffered a humiliating defeat in the Meath East by-election.
In the Sunday Independent today, Labour Senator John Whelan writes: "How this has got through a Cabinet, much less a Cabinet with Labour ministers, is beyond me.
"It will not only be the final nail in the coffin of so many people's lives and hopes and aspirations, but it will also be a final nail for the Labour Party.
"They demonstrate that the despairing cries of many people have clearly fallen on deaf ears. We have lost our way as a party and lost our support in the by-election.
"People feel we have abandoned them.We abandoned the disabled and the carers and low income families dependent on child benefit.
"It is high time – and past it – for senior Labour people, long-serving and experienced, to stand up and be counted. We promised and pledged to protect the most vulnerable. I can't see how we can stand over this."

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