Joerg's Ramblings – Page 12 – A Foreigner in Ireland

Budget Day is coming…on soft slippers!

06 October 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

On Tuesday 09 Oct, the Budget for Ireland for 2019 will be announced. In previous years the media was whipping their readers into a frenzy about what will be increased and what will be decreased and lots of interest groups warned the government about the terrible consequences of the new budget unless they turn it around in time before Tuesday.

But it seems to me that this year the Budget Day is coming on soft slippers. There seems to be a lot less noise about the announcement on Tuesday than in previous years. It could be that it is just my perception, but it also could be that it is quieter because everyone knows that we can’t expect much (good) from the budget, but that it also won’t be tooo bad.

Yes, Cigarettes prices will most likely go up again. Not for health reasons, but just to get taxes.

Petrol and Diesel prices will probably go up as well (and you should fill up your car before midnight on Tuesday if you want to avoid the price hike for the last time).

The 9% VAT rate for the hopsitality sector (hotels and restaurants) will probably go up and that will have a definite bad effect on your pocket if you ever eat out! The restaurants will ALL increase their prices the moment the VAT increase takes effect and the increase will never be limited to the actual VAT increase, but will be generously rounded up. (A 2% increase of that VAT rate should increase a EUR 20 dinner only by 40 cent, but I bet most restaurants will add at least EUR 1 to the price!)

Income tax might fall a bit, but the other tax increases will most likely eat all the savings so that you end up with just a handful of Euro more in your pocket.

DIRT (Deposit Interest Retention Tax), that’s the tax on the interest you earn for your savings, will go down, but that is just part of a many year plan of reducing it, so nothing new. And the Property Tax might go down a tiny bit.

Nothing overly exciting! Maybe that is the reason for the reduced media hype!?

Taxes Budget 2019

Telephonephobia is a new thing!

29 September 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

With surprise I read about a new “problem” in this world. It is the fear of having a phone conversation. The reasons can be manifold. Maybe the information you have to pass on is bad news, or you are concerned that the person you talk to would put you on the sport and you don’t know how to answer a question, or your communication partner is just toooo chatty.

I am on the phone a LOT, due to work, but also for private calls, but after reading about the fear of phone conversations in a German publication, I realised that there are some people that I hardly EVER talk to on the phone. Facebook Messenger and What’s App are the only means we use to communicate with each other. :-O

Are we hiding behind all these messaging apps?

I am not sure if the term Telephonephobia has been used yet for this new type of aversion of using the phone, but it definitely has the danger to become a bit of a problem. A few minutes of a call will create a closer bond with the other person AND will speed up the communication hugely. Have you ever tried to arrange a meeting with someone on messaging platforms only? It can be a pain in the backside to make all arrangements and usually takes a lot longer than a quick call.

So I am in favour of using the phone to TALK to people again. ;-) Who is with me?

Odd Aversion of using the phone, Telephonephobia

The end of 1890 numbers! – Good riddance!

28 September 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

Hurray, one big user of 1890 numbers has stopped using them! The Irish Revenue commissioner loved 1890 numbers and it was difficult sometimes to find the geographical (and cheaper) number, but now they completely stopped using them. A great day for customer service.

Many people don’t know the 1890 “scam”, so let me explain:
Many many moons ago when we still had landlines, the phone companies came up with a marketing solution for companies that wanted to provide a better customer service. If a company used a 1890 number then they would pay for part of the call cost and the caller would pay a lower and capped price. Telecom Eireann/Eircom/eir called these numbers “LoCall” numbers and back in the days this was actually correct, But then came mobile phone companies along and in their greed, they ignored the LoCall idea and instead charged a surcharge. :-O For reasons I will never understand, the telecommunications regulator ComReg didn’t stop the mobile phone companies from scamming the customers. But it got worse! When mobile phone companies introduced inclusive minutes, calls to 1890 numbers were not taken out of that minute budget and still cost a surcharge.
So if you can avoid them, NEVER use 1890 numbers and tell companies that still use them that they had good intention, but are hurting their customers now. NOBODY should use 1890 numbers anymore!
www.thejournal.ie/revenue-new-numbers-4256271-Sep2018

Other numbers to avoid: 1850, 076, 0818 and all 15x numbers. Always look for numbers beginning with a geographical code like “01” etc.

Other 1890, ComReg, LoCall, Revenue, scam, Telecom Eireann

Nobody is allowed to check the President’s spend?

22 September 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

The job of the “Public Accounts Committee (PAC)” is to check the expenditure of all offices, departments and government agencies to make sure that they don’t waste money and that everything is done and accounted for properly.

They are meant to do that regularly, but oddly it seems that the expenditure of the President wasn’t checked for a much longer time.

Now they have decided to do that checking in the next week. But suddenly the “Secretary General to the Government and Accounting Officer for the Office of the President” has a big problem with that check. He thinks it is even unconstitutional because nobody is allowed to check the President. Interestingly the Taoiseach and the leader of the opposition both also are worried about that check.

Odd! If all is well, nobody should be worried and if things are not well, then we should definitely find out BEFORE the presidential election. Don’t you think?

RTE writes about it here.

Elections, Irish, Politics, President, Taxes Expenditure, Michael D Higgins, President

Pet Hate Alert: “, and” – Mind your commas!

21 September 2018Written by Joerg Steegmueller

Why, oh why can people not write proper English. I am foreigner and at least I have a semi-acceptable excuse, but the amount of native English speakers (and writers) that ALWAYS put a comma before an “and” is shocking.

An example would be: “At the event, there will be music, dance, and theatre!”

This is WRONG!!!!!! A comma can be put before an “and” but only if the following sentence after the “and” could be a self standing sentence. Do not use a comma before “and” in a list.

And if you tell me now that the comma in a list is an Oxford Comma, then I will ask you next if your publication is the “Oxford University Press”, because that is the publication that came up with the very controversial use of a comma in a list.

Other, Uncategorized Comma before and, English, Oxford Comma, Punctuation