Cheat On Your Taxes! its the decent thing to do.

Cheat On Your Taxes! its the decent thing to do.

When one considers the dysfunction of society and political governance in Ireland, when one opens ones mouth and begins to complain, there follows then the logical question, 'what have you done for me lately', what have you done to address the problems that cause you to weep into your pint of beer?

I file my taxes this week.  My practice made a profit of 60k last year, and out of that I am to pay some 18k in tax, 11k for last year and 90% of next years tax estimate.   All by the due date of next week. My wife is my practice manager/consultant in charge, and despite my own reluctance to declare every penny earned, she is 'straight as a dye' and would not condone the slightest thought of  "cheating", and so our honesty means that we must join the ranks of the minority who subsidise the majority and pay for the dysfunctionality of the state.

When we lived in New Zealand I did not begrudge paying my taxes because unlike ours, theirs is a nation that is relatively devoid of political corruption, and mass psychogenic delusion. Theirs is a nation with a single political vision, rather than the Irish marriage of incompatibles; like 'universal socialism' and 'pure-capitalism'.  In New Zealand we did not mind paying taxes because the state provided visible and tangible return; one could see exactly what one is working for. Clean cities, well governed municipalities, local governments that assist rather than prey upon communities for rates in every form. Indeed, one pays rates to local authorities for parks, water, garbage, and each year the local authorities send a statement of accounts to each household explaining where and how those  rates are spent.

Contrast that with the arbitrary assignation of local authority rates in Ireland, or the reality that many business struggle to afford their rates, and few if any are aware of what they are paying for. I pay the local authority 3000 euros per annum in "rates" for my office.  In addition I pay for all my utilities, additionally  I pay for my water & garbage separately, and every morning  I pick up the rubbish outside my office door. My patients pay the local authority for parking outside my office. When I opened my practice the Local authority sent me a bill of 10,000 Euro for a "contribution" to the upkeep of the pay and display parking system on the road outside my office. The pay and display system generates profits that accrue entirely to the local authority.  I refused to pay and the matter was decided by An Bord Pleanala, who had no choice but to tell the Local Authority where to go and their 10k bill was rubbished. When opening our practice we had to apply to the authority for a change of use as our building was previously a family home. We were levied at every turn by the local authority, in application fees and re application fees and planning fees. We were given hoops to jump through that many times caused us to consider selling the building and walking away.

Through the entire painful process not one human being from the council visited our premises, not one inspection of the fire codes, the accessibility... nothing. Our architect insisted that we follow every regulation and yet when works were complete and we had been bled as much as was humanely possible, we were granted our planning and the local authority moved onto its next victim.  The Priory Hall Affair was ongoing at the time. We have never had a single representative from the local authority call to see if any of the myriad of stipulations to our planning application were adhered to. Not one single visit from a single human being only bills bills bills. We were the hunted and they were the hunters.

When we lived in New Zealand we had to apply for permission to add a bathroom to the upstairs of our house. The process involved a submission of drawings an initial site inspection by the council and face to face advice and directions  on how best to proceed. We were assigned an inspector who came out to inspect the contractors work and make sure that it was up to code and that we were protected from poor workmanship and substandard practices.  The process was about protecting us, regulating the contractor and caring for the environment and the community.

 Local authorities in Ireland such as Fingal County Council, have become mini-corporations, that are laws unto themselves, they occupy multi-story office blocks such as the one that was built upon the park in Swords in North Dublin (granted permission for by itself).  They are answerable to no one set their rates arbitrarily, do not publish their accounts treat their rate payers as a unscrupulous farmer might treat his herd of milking cows, and provide almost nothing in the form of a visible return for their existence. The most significant element of Ireland's economic collapse was the housing boom and inflated market.  The majority of billions that were lost were lost via the property market.  It was the local authorities who gave the permissions for every unnecessarily constructed dwelling in Ireland, because the themselves reaped the rewards of exorbitant planning application fees.  The Blame for our economic collapse lies squarely at the feet of the professional planners who live in the ivory towers of local authorities.  Their failure to apply any element of urban planning or professionalism towards the communities they are paid to care for, is as blatant as the near half million empty housing units around the country, and the reality that many such "Ghost estates" half completed housing and apartment developments are being torn down as they have become rat infested dens of inequity.  Yet not one single urban "planner", has been called to task, has been subject to even the slightest verbal sanction. Local authorities are the corporations that have no governance, and as such their absolute power has corrupted absolutely.  The reasons are simple and obvious in that the same planners must be approached by business and politicians alike when local communities are to yield to the plans of the corporation, the real power brokers of the Irish state.  Take for example the Eirgrid project, where a cable is connected from Dublin city to the UK grid, so that Ireland can have Nuclear power the Irish way (literally via the back door).  The cable has to land on the Irish coast and be lain beneath the main-streets of several communities. Our own in Rush was one such community. The capable runs outside the door of my surgery.  The planning application for the cable was and remains as a marvellous testimony to the rubber stamping role of local authorities.  The company in their application listed an entirely different street  as the street as the site for the cable.  The made traffic calculations on the basis of this different street, and neglected to include in their report any of the health implications of the high voltage cable that sits a couple of feet below the main street.  For this kind of abuse of local communities, the 'nod' from local governments is absolutely crucial.  In the rare instance where democracy might work and local authorities are not fortunate to have a collection of obedient party members as voting Councillors, a government appointed County Manager has the power of veto and all hopes of democracy are banished to the robust regions of Irish delusion.  There is a history of venality and corruption that has yet to be written in Ireland, the liberties that central government and its corporate sponsors have had in the towns and communities throughout Ireland, speak a story that has yet to be written.  The true tragedy of that tale is that when it is committed to paper, the perpetrators, the county planners who have colluded and schemed and incompetently presided over and effectively planned the economic and ecological  and  ecological collapse of our nation, will like the counterparts in politics, have long since departed from the mess that must be addressed by our children.  One can only dream of a dictatorship that might round up the planners, politicians and bankers who have abused this state and its communities with an especial and subtle type of cruelty and an impunity that is absolute and make them accountable for their crimes, they are guilty of a greater evil than the majority who are crammed into our prisons.


In addition to a crippling  income tax, I must pay, road tax for the roads, property tax to live in my house, I must pay for my rubbish, pay for my water, and utilities, my family and I have no medical card and must pay for medical services, my children have free education that is free in name only (except maternity and child vaccines), I pay tolls to drive on new roads and pay to park outside my own front door.  The free fees at Irish Universities have returned in full and are simply called 'Student contribution charge' The registration fee at UCD is 2708 Euro before books and other costs.  In Capitalist California where taxes are a tiny fraction of their Irish equivalent and there is no such thing as a free lunch the fees to attend the prestigious University of California system are in the region of 3000 Euro. New Zealand University of Otago 2700 Euro per annum.  In Ireland free education is no more than a delusion that is shared by those who have faith in politics.  

New Zealand and American politics are defined by vision, whereas Irish politics is defined by an obsession with outward appearance and an inability to tell the difference between the two. Less politically confused nations are characterised by aspiration towards improved governance, improved services and facilities for the members of society to the betterment of society rather than the confused enrichment of the few through privilege and the enrichment of many through either corruption or social welfare.  The middle (PAYE classes) pay for both options, through a myriad of circular complex taxes. Taxes that mostly feed delusion by giving to everyone in the form of 'free' fees 'children's allowance' and taking from everyone either through multiple   taxes or through the deprivation of services. How many billions would be saved and how much efficiency would be consequenced if we were to set aside the delusion and adhere to the simple vision of either capitalism or socialism in the context of a society that becomes willing to educate itself.

New Zealand boasts a first rate public library system, modern buildings that serve as the focal point for most cities and towns, well stoked with children's story telling, teenage games rooms, newspapers.  All the trappings of a progressive society aspiring towards improved literacy and the social cohesion that arises from access to and encouragement towards literacy.., all of it is free or paid for by taxes.  In Ireland we must invent names for our taxes to perpetuate the delusion, we refer to our payments to the Troika, to bail out our private banks, these are collectively called 'water charges' and 'property taxes', new terms for new extensions to our national delusion.

Almost every small ton in New Zealand has a swimming pool that is subsidised by the state and most are accessible 7 days and 7 evenings per week for a trifling fee. A public park system that is undoubtedly the envy of the developed world with playgrounds that are equipped like private adventure parks; trampolines, massive roped climbing frames, abseiling devices, mad things that are the delight of children and the panic-attacks of parents. Paddling pools for kids, wide open tended spaces with free barbecue facilities and serviced food preparation areas (I'm still referring to the public parks).

There is no litigation to speak of in New Zealand, people don't sue councils if they slip on a Banana skin and end up with; back pain, depression, and diarrhoea for life.  There is no suing because there is a state funded no fault compensation programme (ACC), where all accidents are compensated by the state.  A simple and intelligent programme that brings an end to litigation, and a rational approach to compensation. As a consequence car insurance is not even mandatory, suing  and medico-legal litigation is relatively unknown.  A simple and enlightened effect of good governance, one that would never see the light of day in Ireland because of vested interests like medicine and law.

The New Zealand Government spends 800 million NZ dollars, (about 500 million euro), to provide a highly subsidised drugs scheme that gives affordable medicines to the entire population of 4.4 million (similar to Ireland). Ireland spends 1.5 billion euro on medicines for medical card holders, whilst the rest, the PAYE workers remain the playthings of pharmaceutical companies.

More than this there is the DOC, (the department of conservation), which manages the vast areas of conservation in New Zealand, and an impressive network of trails that traverse the land and the back of the  New Zealand Alps from north to South Island. A myriad of hiking trails are maintained by DOC, and the entire network is accessible and informed of on one easy to use website, with trails and walks for to suit all abilities and ages, practically anywhere throughout the entire country.  Many of the trails into remote regions have huts, which are small cabins, installed on the edge or at the summits of mountains, huts that have water mattresses, a stove and some matches, all tended to cared for and maintained by DOC and your taxes and realily accessible to all.  Class sizes are smaller than the Irish average, literacy and Numeracy is higher than the Irish Average, kids walk to school in their bare feet, they sit about their teacher in circles and call their teachers by their first names, education is free and there are no dodgy relations between schools and book publishers or as is the recent fad in Ireland between I-pad companies and schools. That kind open corruption would never be tolerated.  I Christchurch where we lived I never encountered a single heroin addict on the streets, and you would be hard pressed to find graffiti or even litter for that matter.

There is a certain idiocy and enlightenment that defines the Irish political Landscape, a certain inadequacy that would suggest that we are still uncomfortably shy with the notion of our independence. The shyness and lack of confidence is almost perfectly reflected in the Alter Boy who is our Taoiseach. At international summits we see him either being patted on the head by real politicians or trying to figure out if he should be in the picture, or standing at the side holding somebody's jacket. His shying away from any form of public debate or discussion, and his undisguised fear of Vincent Browne or debate in general, speak volumes of our cowed national identity, our respect for those whom we perceive as our betters.  Was this really the same nation that gave the world Burke, Grattan, De Valera,  Pearse  If romantic Ireland is with O'Leary in the Grave intellectual, self confident Ireland is on trolley in some A& E somewhere.


Yet this essay is likely to degenerate into a simple and all too familiar  begrudgery;  that the Kiwis should have a more intelligent and entirely rational form or government, a begrudgery that their streets are not peppered with an army of zombified heroin addicts, reliving the daily nightmare of an Adam and Paul existence. Begrudgery that their politicians are not the puppets of their own greed and that of special interests. However the thing to begrudge the Kiwi's is the same as the thing we should begrudge the Americans:  That these are not nations of begrudgers. We should begrudge them their lack of begrudgery.

It is this ridiculous notion in Ireland that all should be equal that causes us to resent anyone who might have more.  As though all were equal in either intellect, morality reason, The only equality that should unite us all is one of rights and access to services. And the only thing more ridiculous than 'all being equal' is the notion that happiness is related to having 'more' than others

In Ireland the state attempts to make all people equal in everything, and it is this equality that is crippling us, this equality that is born of our begrudgery.  Poverty today is almost entirely a relative phenomenon. When the Ballymun flats were pulled down and the locals 'gifted' with new apartments, these to for the most part have been lately despoiled, because it is the imagined  'poverty' rather than the real relativity that is being addressed.  If it is encountered in any real sense for the most part Irish poverty  is self imposed through ignorance, addiction, or illness. Outside of these mitigating circumstance, outside of illness or birth, poverty is non existent and yet the fear or it determines much of our politics, and consumes our taxes. There is no African underworld, no cholera, no Kwashiokor, no distended bellies etc; There is only a relativity, a mental illness, addiction, abuse and ignorance that are countered with the impotence of our national delusion.

The time has come for us to shake off this ridiculous notion of an artificial socialism, and move into an era of rational governance. Let the poor and the rich suffer, let them go to hell as the Americans do, come what may the first step towards political progress is political honesty, and Ireland today is buried beneath a haystack of lies.

There is no need for a human being to be a billionaire. there is no need for a man to have more than 10 or 20 thousand in his accounts. There is no such thing as ownership of houses, all are merely borrowed for a time. There is no need for the rich to be in receipt of welfare of children's allowance, whilst we filch unemployment benefit from teenagers. There is no need for unemployment or for unemployment benefit, if indeed we were to live within our needs. There is no need for unemployment as long as there is a single piece of rubbish on our beeches.

"I have a college degree and I shouldn't have to pick papers!" The assertion alone is the purest indication that the degree has been entirely wasted.  Give me a day to leave my practice and walk along the beaches and the coast, enjoying it with others and picking up papers, I would enjoy it more than sitting behind my desk, and more than standing in a dole queue or lying on the sofa feeling sorry for myself.

When you drive to work in the morning look at the rows of cars clogging the arteries and veins to the city, ask of yourself where the hell am I  going and where are all of these people going?  Is there any need or real purpose to most of this madness.  How many jobs have a real rather than entirely imagined purpose?  Some eighty percent of the cars on the road are carrying people to jobs that they do not wish to do, toward daily exercises that truly have no meaning beyond the markets beyond economic growth, materialism and superfluity.  Myself, I see some 20-30 patients per day and it would be a miracle if more than 2 or three were in need of medical advice or attention. The GP has become the priest and the counsellor.

Unhappiness and self delusion have become the order of the day, and we have come to be living lives that Thoreau described as those of 'quiet desperation'.

80% of the cars on the road, 80% of the antibiotics I prescribe, 90% of the tests I request ......are all returned as perfectly normal and utterly pointless.  What has happened that civilisation has moved so far away from itself from the truth of its needs?  How has the progressive stupefaction of our race remained concealed and subterranean?  Why are mothers delivering their children to strangers at crèches and then presenting to their family doctors with the same Children, out of grief and guilt. Why are their 'family doctors' rather than community physicians. Why this dependence upon medical pathology in place of truth and honesty?   Why is it that the delusion has become massive, national even international?  Why is it that access to  an unnecessary pornography of  brutal sexual violence is only two or three typed words away from adults and children alike, how id this a need and a right? How is it that the mass effects of this essential 'freedom' remain as unseen as they are entirely obvious?

The answer can only be because we are as s species becoming progressively more stupid as each day passes. A stupidity that is driven by globalisation, by materialism and by the communicative form that social media compresses and narrows each day with its 'likes' and 'dislikes'.

We live in a time where the artificial, the imagined world of the Internet of  fantasy and delusion, has become our daily bread.  Reality itself is merely an excursion a day out, a hiatus from the madness of the real, it has become something that we can take or leave, and soon it may be lost entirely.