Privatisation Poll

monument

Sorry about that, an error on my part, I’ll rephrase…

Privatisation of the actually networks (whether it’s the rail lines, commutations lines or airways, bus stops, ports, or airports) is extremely wrong and counterproductive.

While privatisation to the extent of allowing more then one bus company to stop at the side of the road OR operate certain lines etc can be a positive thing when the state retains some control and accountably.

arcadegame2004

so when you said rail coudn't be privitised i was confused by what you meant? see?

Shouldn't is what I said/meant. I accept rail as an exception to the rule.

jd

Originally posted by arcadegame2004
I mean it is hardly practical to build 10 tracks from dublin to cork, each track being the property of a rail-company and with each track/rail company competing against others is it?

Explain how you can build 10 electricity transmission networks?

BuffyBot

Originally posted by jd
Explain how you can build 10 electricity transmission networks?

...specially when the workers are being paid 120000 a year or some other unverified figure....

oscarBravo

Originally posted by thejollyrodger
Dublin urgently needs at least a 2nd or 3rd runway.

Last time I looked, Dublin had three runways. From memory, 10/28, 11/29 and 16/34.

therecklessone

Originally posted by oscarBravo
Last time I looked, Dublin had three runways. From memory, 10/28, 11/29 and 16/34.

Look again, 11/29 hasn't been used in nearly two years.

What he meant, and I think you know this, was a parallel 10/28 to cater for increased demand.

Current ATC ops forbid the use of 16/34 when 10/28 is the active, except for ILS training for IMES.

oscarBravo

Originally posted by therecklessone
What he meant, and I think you know this, was a parallel 10/28 to cater for increased demand.

I've occasionally seen some queueing for departure at Dublin, but I can't remember ever being in a hold pattern on approach. A parallel runway would be useful for future growth, but is it really that urgent?

therecklessone

Originally posted by oscarBravo
I've occasionally seen some queueing for departure at Dublin, but I can't remember ever being in a hold pattern on approach. A parallel runway would be useful for future growth, but is it really that urgent?

Yes. A parallel runway would allow full utilisation of 3nm seperation on the approach, which is legal but rarely used in the current setup due to the need to integrate departures into the arrival stream.

With some tweaking Dublin can accomodate 2/3 more a/c per hour but thats it. Its not that bad most of the time, but as anyone who flew in the Sunday before last can tell you, you would have faced about 20-25 minutes holding from roughly 11am up to 4pm.

Weekend holiday charters place a huge strain on Dublin operations.

Sleepy

Monopoly = inefficienct. State run organisation = inefficienct. Combine the two and you get a disasterous situation like we have in this country. The free market is the only economic tool we have that even approaches something like efficiency. The balls up of the Eircom situation arose imho from handing such a large chunk of the company to the board and workers - basically handing control of the company over to those who ran it into the ground in the first place.

Privatisation should be overseen by a management team who don't stand to make millions in the short-run. I'd love to see it performed by the likes of KMPG/Accenture/Ernst&Young etc. on a equity deal (i.e. a stakeholding instead of a consultancy fee) whereby they couldn't sell their interest for a minimum of 5-7 years (forcing them to run the company for the medium - long term instead of the short.

Aer Lingus - Should definitely be sold. At present, the companies keeping it's head above water but is in need of investment the government isn't allowed to introduce. While it's in this position, the company should be able to perform quite well in a floatation instead of leaving it a few years until the floatation would be a last minute bail out job.

Aer Rianta is so damn inefficient I'd almost support giving the thing away to a proven union buster that had experience in the field.

The public sector should be run like the private in terms of how it deals with employees. If my company chose to relocate to the arse-hole of nowhere (and being based in Deans Grange you could argue that we already are) I'd either have to move with them or find a new job. There'd be none of this messing about with the current government decentralisation plan. And I could guarantee it'd be organised and executed better.

Civil Servants are, in general, lazy, indignant, over-paid and run by overtly militant unions. No private company would tolerate their behaviour and tbh I don't think we as their employers (by virtue of being taxpayers) should tolerate it either.

monument

Originally posted by Sleepy
The balls up of the Eircom situation arose imho from handing such a large chunk of the company to the board and workers - basically handing control of the company over to those who ran it into the ground in the first place.

No, at all, the main 'balls up' of the whole Eircom thing was handing the country's phone lines into private hands creating a private monopoly, then quick profit making at the same time letting the phone network fall into shambles.

The lines should have been opening it up to companies, and the state should have retained overall ownership.

“Privatisation should be overseen by a management team who don't stand to make millions in the short-run.”

You’re getting a tad bit confused, that’s not the ‘free market’, as you put it. Aer Lingus, would most likely end up in the hands of a large airline, which does not have Ireland’s interests in mind.

As for the way you’re talking about Aer Rianta, it sounds as if you want to go down the Eircom route.

arcadegame2004

Aer Lingus, would most likely end up in the hands of a large airline, which does not have Ireland’s interests in mind.

Excuse me? Do you realise that Ireland exports more (in monetary terms) computer-equipment than any other country in the world? Do you realise that trade between the US and Ireland is double that of trade between the US and China?

You are very naieve if you seriously believe that airlines will stop flying here if Aer Lingus is privatised. There is clearly a profitable market in the 1.8 million Irish people living outside this state. There is clearly a profitable market in the travels of Irish tourists to visit their American/British/Australian etc. relatives abroad. There is clearly a profit to be made in the travels of businessmen back and forth over the Atlantic between Ireland and America.

Where there is a profit to be made, the airlines will be interested in exploiting that. And you are wrong.

chewy

its seems to me that you are very either or in the situation

i think public sectors unions(unions in general ) are very sluggish and selfish (you shouldn't expect/demand a job for life these days?)

but i don't see privitisation as the cure for their high demands



i still don't see the difference with rail excpet we have a very recent of example of privitation at it's worst

monument

What did I say...

A) "which does not have Ireland’s interests in mind."

"they'll stop flying here"

I love when people put words in mouth.

arcadegame2004

Originally posted by Chewy
but i don't see privitisation as the cure for their high demands

I disagree. They are afraid to go on strike as much in the private-sector because they are much easier to sack there, with their sackings not getting nearly as much public-attention. For this reason, they are usually far more reluctant to make mad pay-demands unlike the ESB officers union demanding 18%.

The ink isn't even dry on the new pay-deal yet and their already breaking it...:o

chewy

thanks for the reply arcade..

but i reckon nobody should post to this thread until arcade gets proff of his 120,000e claim? he did start this thread






but the argeument seems to have gone onto others threads anyway

arcadegame2004

Chewy I remember hearing the 120,000 or thereabouts figure a few years ago, maybe on RTE news or something, in relation to ESB officers. It is the ESB officers' union that is threatening the strike. Interestingly, a trade-union official admitted on Morning Ireland this morning that the trade-union threatening this strike would be in breach of the no-strike clause of the national-wage agreement Sustaining Progress. Why should the Government keeps its side of the bargain e.g. on benchmarking, if the unions won't? If the strike does go ahead then I feel the Government should dock the pay of strikers.

therecklessone

Originally posted by arcadegame2004
If the strike does go ahead then I feel the Government should dock the pay of strikers.

Eh, you do realise you don't get paid for days you are on strike, don't you?

arcadegame2004

Eh, you do realise you don't get paid for days you are on strike, don't you?

I don't realise that. Because remember during the ASTI that when there was media speculation that the Government might dock striking-teachers' pay, it emerged that they could not do this without breaching the Data Protection Act. I would call for an amendment to this Act to be passed to allow this information to be used in the event of strikes detrimental to the public-interest.

bobbyjoe

Not 100% sure but wasn't the issue during the ASTI thing that they refused to supervise the yard during the breaks (which they had been doing for nothing for years, not to mention all of the non paid extra curricular stuff thay do) and the schools had to close due to no supervision not due to a strike.

Victor

Originally posted by arcadegame2004
I don't realise that.

Thats such a noob admission. Did you honestly think during the what 15 months (?) of the miners strike, that they were all raking it in?

Originally posted by arcadegame2004
I don't realise that. Because remember during the ASTI that when there was media speculation that the Government might dock striking-teachers' pay, it emerged that they could not do this without breaching the Data Protection Act. I would call for an amendment to this Act to be passed to allow this information to be used in the event of strikes detrimental to the public-interest.

The Department had proposed accessing teachers pay files to see whether they were ASTI members (by seeing if they paid membership fees to the ASTI) and remove pay that way. The infomation was collected for one reason and it was being proposed to use it for another, unauthorised reason, whcih would have been in breach of hte Data Protection Act. Hence it wasn't done.

arcadegame2004

Then Victor the Data Protection Act should be amended to allow it to be done.

oscarBravo

Originally posted by arcadegame2004
Then Victor the Data Protection Act should be amended to allow it to be done.

No, it shouldn't. Why should the government have any more right to access private information than anyone else?

arcadegame2004

No, it shouldn't. Why should the government have any more right to access private information than anyone else?

Because by inconveniencing the public in the name of obtaining a pay-hike almost 4 times that agreed in the National Pay Deal they are making it the business of the Government, since the Government is using our taxes to pay them.

I am not talking about general Government access to all private information, just that which relates to trade-union membership during a strike in public-sector company, and only when their demands are contrary to what the National Wage Deal says they are entitled to.

oscarBravo

Originally posted by arcadegame2004
I am not talking about general Government access to all private information, just that which relates to trade-union membership during a strike in public-sector company, and only when their demands are contrary to what the National Wage Deal says they are entitled to.

Not for the first time, I'm very glad that you're not drafting our legislation.

arcadegame2004

Why should public-sector workers get paid their wages when they refuse to do the work?

oscarBravo

Originally posted by arcadegame2004
Why should public-sector workers get paid their wages when they refuse to do the work?

At whom was that particular non-sequiter directed?

arcadegame2004

Well for example I feel that striking ASTI workers's wages should have been docked for the time they spent on strike. I also feel that the same should happen for any ESB workers who strike in support of terms that are outside of the National Pay Deal.

oscarBravo

Originally posted by arcadegame2004
Well for example I feel that striking ASTI workers's wages should have been docked for the time they spent on strike.

They weren't on strike. This has been pointed out to you.

I also feel that the same should happen for any ESB workers who strike in support of terms that are outside of the National Pay Deal.

If they strike, they won't be paid. This has also been pointed out to you.

chewy

god help ya the day you bare the brunt of one of these many laws you suggest...


and don't pretedn you'd jsut take it like a man you'd sut suggest a another law change



as far as i know re the data protection act you suggest changing it so data collected for one purpose cna be used for another, that is what you said, that of course would be hugly dangerous and affect way to many other things


what they would actually have to do was convince the holders of the data that they should get it so they could find out who was on strike and dock them pay and if the holders refused which its their right to do so tough ****

lucernarian

Some of those teachers are hypocrites. Many of them can't teach properly and there's little or no way of changing that. Many of those teachers never do supervision or extra-curricular activities, the stupid lazy gits.
If they weren't on strike they were taking industrial action extremely similar to it. Schools had to virtually close because of it.

I heard of a school in Swords where students blockaded the teachers inside the staff room because they thought they had no right to picket because of very bad exam results. I dont exactly know the full extent of what happened but I believe the Gardaí were called to the scene. I think some of the Trade Unions hold a sword over nearly all our heads.

Its an interesting point that Aer Lingus should be sold while its going great before anything goes wrong but I don't know how they cant obtain some capital in their current form.

Why cant the state assume ownership of eircom infrastructure and then lease the lines to companies? I think that in this case nationalisation would be good.