Dec 8, 2005

The Good Life

This brilliant blog by James - putting us all to shame with his energy saving life in Ireland.

The Good Life

Irish Budget 2006 highlights

The annual budget was announced today - critics see it as a vote winning exercise. There were some attempts to help with childcare - but probably not enough. Maybe they should be looking at why people need childcare - because of the overall cost of living both parents need to work.


Overall spending
- Public spending to rise next year by ?5bn, with day to day spending to grow to ?48.3bn
- Capital spending will come close to 5% of GNP

Childcare
- A 5-year investment programme ? ?317m being invested initially with a further ?600m afterwards
- Monthly child benefit rate for the first and second child to increase to ?150, the rate for third and subsequent children to increase to ?185
- An extension to the current 18-weeks maternity leave, and the rate of maternity benefit to increase from 75% to 80% of earnings

Tax
- Tax relief package of ?900 million, all those on the current minimum wage to be taken out of the tax net, all those on the average industrial wage will only pay the standard rate
- Tax relief to be capped for those with an income over ?250,000
- Tax relief for horse and greyhound stud fee incomes will end in July 2008

OAPs
- The full personal rate of old age and related pensions to rise by ?14 per week, an increase of almost 8%
- Non-contributory pensions to rise by ?16 per week, an increase of 9.6%

Social Welfare
- Welfare package of ?1.12bn
- Personal weekly social welfare rates to be increased by ?17 per week, bringing the lowest full personal social welfare rate up 11% to ?165.80 per week

Fuel
- Rise in the rate of the National Fuel Scheme from ?9 to ?14 per week
- Excise duty on home heating oil to be halved from midnight tonight

Respite
- An increase in Respite Care Grant to ?1,200

Carers
- An enhanced Carers Allowance rate of ?200 per week for people aged 66 or over and ?180 for people under the age of 66

Education
- ?1.2bn for third level education
- ?3.9bn capital funding for education sector over 5 years



IOL: Budget 2006 highlights

Dec 7, 2005

A good idea for christmas presents

Concern Gifts of Hope 2005

Child Benefit Increases

Todays Budget in Ireland increased the standard child benefit in Ireland to 150 euro a month for the first 3 children and 180 a month for 3rd and subsequent children.
Also- for children under 6 an annual payment of 1000 euro is being introduced - paid quarterly.
This means that for each child under 6 the state pays about 50 euro a week in benefits. All of this is not means tested. This is probably one of the highest rates of Child Benefit payments in Europe?

Dec 2, 2005

Jobs with Amazon in Dublin

Amazon have a large Data Centre in Dublin Ireland -  and there are always IT related job opportunities at Amazon in Dublin

See all Current Amazon Job Vacancies in Dublin Here


Software Development Engineer


Database Administrator - 


Recruitment Coordinator


Network Engineer


Datacenter Technician


Datacenter Manager


Systems Engineer


Senior Software Development Engineer


Senior Support Engineer


Senior Software Development Engineer





Security Engineer


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Dec 1, 2005

Have a Look at this Blog

A fine Irish Blog - which gives a good and humorous insight into some aspects of Irish Life and opinions.

AH SURE YA KNOW YERSELF by JL Pagano