by Kathleen Mullane

‘Out and About’

Sincere sympathy is extended to Betty Murphy and her family of Gortnagross on the death of John, quite suddenly, last week, or as he was known “The Bold Murphy”. John was ‘jack of all trades’ and was a great provider for his large family of 10 children when times were tough. ‘May his kindly soul rest in peace’.

You might say “Why are the Hall Committee having a Church Gate Collection for the Hall when the debt has been greatly reduced in the past 12 months?” well we don’t want to be going around asking families to buy tickets for a draw in these recessionary times, for the moment anyway and its quite difficult to procure a date for a collection – so anyway this weekend sees a Church Gate Collection for “YOUR HALL”. the heating , insurance and running costs still need to be paid , the kitchen will be refurbished shortly, thus making the Hall suitable for parties of all descriptions, for get-togethers, post funeral meals etc., where people can organise caterers and bring in their own food and drink with full use of the hall and kitchen facilities for a very reasonable fee. Hopefully, this summer we may be able to organise a few volunteers to get together and paint the outside of the hall. Athea “as a community” and beyond Athea has been wonderful in 2011 all coming together and getting rid of that debt that for so long was a real burden. Hopefully in 2012 there will be a few who would organise another great show like “Walking in Sunshine” which really gave us a nice lift last year. We wait in anticipation!

A huge crowd attended the recent meeting in Newcastle West with regard to the proposed €100 each household is being asked to pay before 31^st March and also the septic tanks issue which is worrying a lot of people, not to mention the tax that the pensioners are going to have to pay. We pay income tax, at least those of us who have jobs do. We pay PRSI for a dysfunctional over administered Health service. We pay VRT on our cars and excise duty and VAT on petrol. We pay Road –Tolls, we pay sky high parking fees in our towns. We pay to have our rubbish taken away. They want to charge us for our water. They charge us for having TV’s and for having dogs. They charge us for writing cheques and for having Credit Cards. When we die they try to charge us for what we leave behind even though it has been taxed during our lives. They are proposing charging to take your own money out of the ATM machines. Will we be charged for going to the bathroom next?