A free lunch with a gift horse
I missed a phone call last Friday.
It was on my mobile phone and I didn’t discover it until late. The number mystified me a bit so I did some research. It was from the SEAI mob.
Some time back, our Glorious Gubmint decided to start a scheme to make all our houses energy efficient. They set up a qango called the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, and for once an acronym was desirable and less of a mouthful – the SEAI. They were to visit every house in the country and advise as to the work required to make our homes energy efficient. Having lots of taxpayers’ money to play with, they offered grants for any work required.
I went into their site to see what kind of grants were available and made an interesting discovery. There were various scales of grant and there was even a 100% grant if you were born on a Tuesday, had red hair and were born before 1870. You get my drift? To qualify for a 100% grant you had to fall into a very narrow category with all sorts of conditions. To my surprise, I ticked all the requirements so should get a 100% grant.
A while back I had a visitor. He worked for a company employed by the SEAI to grade houses to see which ones required work. He ws a very pleasant chap and happily wandered around the place measuring rooms and tapping all the radiators. He said he reckoned at first glance that we deserved an upgrade. Fair enough. Before he left he confirmed that yes, I was due a free upgrade. Woopee!
Anyhows, back to the phonecall. I phoned the number this morning. I got onto a very nice chap and after a bit of confusion he found my details. “Ah yes”, says he, “you’re down for the FREE upgrade”. He was very happy about this and kept confirming that it was a FREE upgrade. He explained that as a FREE client I had been moved up to the next level and would be visited by a quantity surveyor to assess the exact work required. This visit he assured me was FREE.
Just out of interest I asked him what his colleague had rated my energy efficiency. Apparent, on a scale of A to G, I’m at F. I wonder what elevated me from the humiliating G?
So anyway, after I have been surveyed I will be assigned a contractor to do the work. This, my new friend assured me was FREE. They would do the actual upgrading and on no account was I to give them any money as I am on the FREE scheme. .
Now I am waiting for the quantity surveyor who will call in the next few weeks. Naturally it’s a FREE visit.
There is so much emphasis on this FREE lark that I am getting suspicious.
Where’s the catch?
The heat pump will be crap. Noisy, expensive to run, and incapable of making the house warm in winter. Summer, not so much.
He only had one really positive thing to say about the place and that was our central heating boiler. He was delighted it had a very high efficiency rating and there ws no need to replace it. It’s oil fired! I thought oil fired boilers were a sin these days?
“Where’s the catch?”
The catch being who pays for all this “Free” stuff. I’m sure you’re astute enough to know the answer…
Not me. All my taxes have already been spent on lavish vanity projects like the two billion yoyo Childre,s Hospital. I reckon I own at least one concrete block there?
It’s not “FREE”, it’s “PLUNDER” – aka government robbing mostly poor folks taxes to spaff on boondongles.
But it makes a nice lot of grift for all the middlemen such as the very nice chap coming round to assess your house, the quantity surveyor who’ll see you in a couple of weeks once he’s finished surveying all the other “FREE” jobs, and of course all the builders and installers who’ll be ripping out the old so they can invoice the “FREE STUFF” fairy once they’ve installed the new. All spending someone else’s money on someone else (ref Milton Friedman).
I expect that the money that’ll be spent on your FREE stuff would buy a lot of coal/oil/turf to keep your Grade F manor nice and toasty for many a year. Plus several new warm woolly jumpers for you and the misses 🙂
PS: I think the Spanish Guinness drinkers have been at your site again. I got assorted 508s (Resource Limit Is Reached), 524’s (A Timeout Occurred) and a 500 (Internal Server Error) earlier today (Firefox/Mint – other sites all working).
I have no objection to my tax money being spent on stuff that is essential and worthwhile. Such as me?
I know about the site outages. There were a few yesterday [adding to my non-quiet day]. It was caused by a peak in traffic and a resulting bottle-neck on services.
Thing is, Government takes everyone’s tax money, spends it on “essential and worthwhile stuff”, such as stuff for everyone. And wastes a large chunk of it on nice young chaps, quantity surveyors and contractors on “government job” rates. Would you shell out on that essential and worthwhile stuff if it were out of your own pocket? Would you shell out those large chunks of wasted money if it were you yourself doing the spending? And would you willingly shell out those large chunks and the waste on your neighbors “essential and worthwhile stuff” down the lane?
I do know that there is an argument to be made that it makes good financial sense to take the proceeds of Government Plunder, but that does not make it right, and it encourages them to carry on plundering.
And jolly well tell those Spaniards to stop outing your site with their necking the Guinness bottles !
I have been paying taxes all my life and continue to do so, all the time I travel or shop. Even living as a hermit won’t escape the tax net because I have to pay for my own house with a “property tax”. I could let them piss all that tax money against the wall, but I’m of the belief that I should avail of every single opportunity to grab some of that tax back. I find no ethical or moral problem with that.
There is also the argument that the contractors, surveyors and other jobsworths are coining it in too, but that money just goes back into the economy anyway. It’s keeping them employed and presumably they are being milked for taxes in turn.