In the money - huge pay hikes for all!

Sleepy

purplengold wrote: »

Looking at purely monetary compensation this gobsh1te is getting about 200,000 per year too much.

Looking purely at his monetary compensation and his performance, he's being paid about €50,310,000 too much.

Tea drinker

Mr.Micro wrote: »

One gets the impression from Bertie that he feels he is not appreciated enough obvious by his sulky little quips about yachts and mansions .

I feel in general is his whole yeah but, no but, Ehh there's lulu! attitude is unprofessional and demeaning to Irish. I mean, he's not really all that presentable, is he?

And really for the love of god, why would they accept this payout when they are supposed to lead by example? Really? Looks like we are heading for some strikes / industrial unrest based on this.

guinnessdrinker

I think the gov. are being very short sighted by accepting the pay rise. I mean look how much good publicity and credibility they would get if the did not accept it or even if they postponed it.

It would be worth more to them in the long term as they could have said in the future:

"look at us, we realised the economy was slowing down and may be heading for a down turn so we did the sensible thing and lead by example, we tightened our belts..." and so on.

But the attitude of the gov. seems to be - grab the money quick!

As for Bertie, he's just embarrassing at this stage. As leader of the country, trying to justify the pay rise while being a poor orator and possessing extremely poor communication skills is embarrassing to watch on tv or listen to on the radio.

jmayo

Did anybody see bertie's performance in the Dail yesterday ?

According to him we are looking at the negative side of the health system.
Tell that to the families of the women misdiagnosed, the family of the lady that died probably because she was misdiagnosed or the lady that had a breast removed because of incompetence and under resourcing.

What about the capital spending they have facilitated?
Well it is not a lot of good spending money on machines or new wards if there aren't the staff (doctors, nurses, porters, technicians) to use them.

What about all the people they treat?
Ok he failed to mention that some of them are left sitting on trolleys and chairs in A&E for maybe upto 12 hours.

He failed to mention that some of them have been on waiting lists for years.
He failed to mention that some people have been misdiagnosed and are receiving treatment much later than they should.

How far removed from reality is this eejit :rolleyes:
Fupping muppet.

Mr.Micro

The man is ill qualified to talk about anything of value let alone technical or medical matters.His mind is on yachts and mansions and little things like that .

DrumSteve

poor bertie... sure didnt bush and sarkozy get free residences....

hang on a minute....bertie got a free house too?

juuge

jmayo wrote: »

Did anybody see bertie's performance in the Dail yesterday ?

According to him we are looking at the negative side of the health system.
Tell that to the families of the women misdiagnosed, the family of the lady that died probably because she was misdiagnosed or the lady that had a breast removed because of incompetence and under resourcing.

What about the capital spending they have facilitated?
Well it is not a lot of good spending money on machines or new wards if there aren't the staff (doctors, nurses, porters, technicians) to use them.

What about all the people they treat?
Ok he failed to mention that some of them are left sitting on trolleys and chairs in A&E for maybe upto 12 hours.

He failed to mention that some of them have been on waiting lists for years.
He failed to mention that some people have been misdiagnosed and are receiving treatment much later than they should.

How far removed from reality is this eejit :rolleyes:
Fupping muppet.

Couldn't agree more - we need a revolution, seriously we do !

Mr.Micro

DrumSteve wrote: »

poor bertie... sure didnt bush and sarkozy get free residences....

hang on a minute....bertie got a free house too?

I do think there is some irony in that The Israeli Prime Minister Olmert is being investigated by police for allegedly taking money while finance minister,buying a house that was allegedly deliberately undervalued for him and doing favours for friends. That would not happen in Ireland surely? Sounds familiar though....hmmmm.

I'd imagine it would if it were to happen today in Ireland with current legislation...

DublinWriter

Fratton Fred wrote: »

you do realise that Gordon Brown will have to move out of Chequers when his term finishes, he doesn't get to keep it.

Two points regarding Ahern's comments about houses and domestic staff:

1. He has the use of Farmleigh.
2. The Blairs did all their own cooking when raising a young family at No.11 Downing Street.

gandalf

Ahern isn't directing his comments to convince us, he is aiming it squarely at the old biddies that keep voting him in. The crocodile tear infested sham of an interview with Brian Dobson was choreographed for "Biddy Ireland" (with RTE shaming themselves even further allowing it!).

And what will happen next election the sheep will vote for the bluffers again. Sometimes I really despair at the lack of political intelligence in the general population in this country.

As I have said before we are paying our politicians way too much and there are way too many of them. A cull of numbers is needed. I posted on this years ago and I still firmly believe we should only have between 90-100 TD's.

nesf

gandalf wrote: »

Sometimes I really despair at the lack of political intelligence in the general population in this country.

Are you genuinely saying there's a clear and obvious superior option out there that people should automatically recognise as being such because really there isn't much different out there. If, for a second, you believe that FG or Labour would have turned down these payrises when offered them etc.

oscarBravo

nesf wrote: »

Are you genuinely saying there's a clear and obvious superior option out there that people should automatically recognise as being such because really there isn't much different out there. If, for a second, you believe that FG or Labour would have turned down these payrises when offered them etc.

Speaking for myself: I was hoping for a regime change at the last election not because I believe the alternative is substantially better (although I find it hard to imagine it could be any worse), but because of the smugness and arrogance that has become utterly entrenched within the current government. There is a deeply-rooted sense of entitlement to political office within Fianna Fáil, and along with it a sense that they alone know what's best for us.

juuge

nesf wrote: »

Are you genuinely saying there's a clear and obvious superior option out there that people should automatically recognise as being such because really there isn't much different out there. If, for a second, you believe that FG or Labour would have turned down these payrises when offered them etc.

That still dosen't make it right.

is_that_so

A piece in yesterday's Times mentioned Dev and a pay cut he took way back. He had campaigned on it as well in the 1930s. It is not necessarily a bad political notion to reject the increase.

As for the hypothetical government; FG and Labour whilst welcoming it, might well have taken a deep breath and sent it back for further review. Being a new government they would have seen this as politically expedient. With the current economic climate and the free-for-all benchmark days coming to an end they would probably still have been looking at an increase but at least they would have shown political sense.

Our incumbents on the other hand have got far too used to power and how they do things. If Bertie played for Arsenal, Wenger would have sold him straight after the last election. His time is gone IMO. The longer he trots out his platitudes and more seriously his more regular, deluded and misguided comments the more his aura will be tarnished and by association FF. With his finances about to become the centre of attention yet again we will see more and more of this intemperance.

I think Enoch Powell was right here about "all political careers ending in failure", especially in this part of the world. Quite simply because they don't know when the tide has gone out on them.

My theory on the pay rise is that it would have made sense to turn it down.
He didn't need it.It was just plain Greed.
It is after all an unjustifiable rise equal to the average industrial wage that many FF voters get.
I think Ahern, his days being numbered just doesn't want to see that wood for the tree's.
He probably expects that in 4 years time that will be forgotten about and you know going on the recent past he's probably right.
Ahern won't be fighting the next election so he doesn't care anyway.
His party colleagues,members and supporters would want to be mindfull of that fact.

I don't believe for one second though that if FG and Labour were in power that they would have forgone a similar rise.
Politics at it's basest level is all huff and puff.

gurramok

Tristrame wrote: »

He probably expects that in 4 years time that will be forgotten about and you know going on the recent past he's probably right.

I think he might be wrong on this one.

Been paid more than the likes of superpower leaders of Bush/Brown/Merkel/Sarkozy etc would stick no matter if Ahern is still there or Cowen becomes leader.

Its up to the opposition to keep the issue alive especially when bad news economic news arrives over time, but will they?
Are they that inept not to let the public forget??...that worrys me.

The media has a role to play in this also, will they desert the FF'ers this time round?

Though, I can see comedians using the paid more than Bush line in sketches up to the next election!

gandalf

nesf wrote: »

Are you genuinely saying there's a clear and obvious superior option out there that people should automatically recognise as being such because really there isn't much different out there. If, for a second, you believe that FG or Labour would have turned down these payrises when offered them etc.

Actually I do believe that Labour and FG would not have had the extreme arrogance to accept them. We are moving into a financial downturn, jobs are being lost, houses are being reprocessed yet the very people who will be telling us to tighten our belts are hiking their already bloated wages. In Aherns case its a sum over the average industrial wage.

Liam Byrne

I had to laugh during the week.....Bertie went on and on about how the Government and their "advisors" needed the money, and that they couldn't expect TDs to run departments without their secretaries, etc....

Those wouldn't be the same secretaries that don't pass on vital info, Bertie ?

As for his own arrogant stance on his pay-rise, one of the papers quoted him as bluffing about the supposed "fact" that he hadn't received one in years......apart from an interim one a few years ago.

Comparing to industry pay rates (supposedly to attract the right candidates) is also ridiculous......in the real world, you don't get a pension after a few years and you get fired if you screw up badly enough.

But in the fairytale world that FF live in, everything's going just fine.

It'd be funny if it weren't so wrong.....

If Bertie & Co were any good, I probably wouldn't mind paying a decent amount, but this is daylight robbery!

Plus (on a side-but-kinda-related note) I was in Dublin earlier today - apparently it's the self-proclaimed "world's greatest city" :rolleyes: but looking at the level of development and roads there, it's also long overdue time we got a non-Dub as a Taoiseach so that investment doesn't stop at Naas.......

Bac fully on-topic, though - the unfortunate thing is that the track record that Tristrame refers to does imply that people forget things, which is why all of the crap decisions and blatant ineptitude have come immediately after an election......hopefully, however, someone somewhere will flood the media with reminders of all of these cock-ups and arrogance in the run-up to the next election (hopefully in 2008)

gurramok

Here's what they got over the years, thanks to info from http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_1011618.shtml

finfacts wrote:

The Taoiseach's pay and that of ministers has almost trebled in ten years. In addition to pensions which kick in immediately on losing office, ministers get a gift of one and a half times salary. So when Bertie Ahern leaves office as Taoiseach, his gift will be worth gross more than €300,000 even while remaining as a TD and drawing a pension.

The Taoiseach - man of the people as he claims to be - racks up more than €30,000 in costs for make-up every year.

Ahern's salary increase to €310,000 marks a 177% advance since 1997.The increase in average weekly wage in manufacturing was 109%.

There is a fund that is currently valued at €21 billion to pay Ahern and co-public sector retirees.

The majority of private sector workers have no occupational pensions while public sector staff from the Irish Pensions Board on gold-plated pensions themselves, implore those with none to start saving before it's too late.

The following is the raft of hikes for the Insiders in Irish society - people who claim to have created the Celtic Tiger as detailed by The Sunday Business Post:

Minister Dempsey said that on performance, they should be paid more. So what should the Outsiders be paid and that's ignoring the gold-plated pensions of the Insiders?

Pay increases awarded to the Taoiseach, Tanaiste and ministers since the 1997 election under national wage agreements, the Review Body on Higher Remuneration and benchmarking:

July 1997: 2.5 per cent (subject to maximum increase of IR£5 a week), Partnership 2000

April 1998: 2.5 per cent (also removal of IR£5 per week ceiling), Partnership 2000

July 1998: 2.25 per cent, Partnership 2000

July 1999: 1.5 per cent, Partnership 2000

April 2000: 1 per cent, Partnership 2000

September 2000: 5 per cent (ofministerial salary only),Review Body

October 2000: 5.5 per cent, Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF)

March 2001: 5 per cent (of ministerial salary only), Review Body

April 2001: 2 per cent, adjustment to PPF

July 2001:5 per cent (of ministerial salary only), Review Body

October 2001: 5.5 per cent, PPF

December 2001: (backdated from 2003) 2.75 per cent (of TD’s portion of salary only), benchmarking

April 2002: 1 per cent lump sum, PPF

April 2002: 5 per cent, Review Body October 2002: 4 per cent, PPF

January 2004: 5.5 per cent (of TDs’ salaries only), benchmarking

January 2004: 3 per cent, Sustaining Progress

July 2004: 2 per cent, Sustaining Progress

December 2004: 2 per cent, Sustaining Progress

June 2005: 1.5 per cent, Sustaining Progress II

June 2005: 2.5 per cent (of TDs’ salaries only), benchmarking

July 2005: 7.5 per ce nt (of ministerial salary only), Review Body

December 2005:1.5 per cent, Sustaining Progress II

June 2006: 2.5 per cent, Sustaining Progress II

December 2006: 3 per cent, Towards 2016

June 2007: 2 per cent, Towards 2016

September 2007: 5 per cent, Review Body

Source: Department of Finance

nesf

gandalf wrote: »

Actually I do believe that Labour and FG would not have had the extreme arrogance to accept them.

We can agree to disagree on it but their immediate reactions after the announcements weren't exactly angry. They will of course be receiving those salaries in a couple of years so they probably weren't that upset that it was FF who'd have to deal with the bad press.

Politics the world over is the same. If there's one thing politicians of any creed are good at it's giving themselves (and upper civil servants) pay rises when it's 4/5 years until the next general election.

juuge wrote:

That still dosen't make it right.

Yup, but it's one of those things you have to accept about politics in my opinion. I don't condone it or anything, I just don't see how giving politicians the power to set their own salaries will result in anything different. The incentives are stacked too much in that direction. You might get the odd "pure" politician who wouldn't take a raise but honestly people don't tend to vote for these people for various reasons.

gandalf

nesf wrote: »

Politics the world over is the same.

If that only was the case. If the scandals that have punctuated this governments current and previous terms occurred in nearly any other country there would have been resignations.

It shows their level of character and their opinion of the electorate that they do not do the honourable thing. As I said people in this country are sheep and are ignorant of what a parliamentary representative is for.

And then to cap it off they give themselves a pay rise for the "good" job that they are doing.

walshb

Did anyone happen to hear Bertie in the Dail attempting
to justify his rise?

He talked complete crap and was waffling on about Sarkozy?
And how he and others get this and that and this and that.
It was actually like a personal attack on these
other leaders. It really was bad to hear him basically
slagging them in order to attempt to justify
his salary....I'm not exaggerating here, he was that bad.
He was waffling about their private jets and their tax affairs etc etc
and the biggest waffle was how he (Bertie) pays for his
cups of tea:rolleyes:, and how they DO not...

Seriously, check it out. It was really really embarrassing!!!!

juuge

walshb wrote: »

Did anyone happen to hear Bertie in the Dail attempting
to justify his rise?

He talked complete crap and was waffling on about Sarkozy?
And how he and others get this and that and this and that.
It was actually like a personal attack on these
other leaders. It really was bad to hear him basically
slagging them in order to attempt to justify
his salary....I'm not exaggerating here, he was that bad.
He was waffling about their private jets and their tax affairs etc etc
and the biggest waffle was how he (Bertie) pays for his
cups of tea:rolleyes:, and how they DO not...

Seriously, check it out. It was really really embarrassing!!!!

You are right it is embarrassing, the layers are beginning to peel away and we are now seeing him in his true colours. His remarks about the heart specialist Maurice Nelligan were despicable and how bertie’s own colleagues can stand over such behaviour is quite unbelievable. We need a revolution, we really do.

walshb

But that's Bertie all the time. When he's rattled and on the ropes he really shows his lack of class and character. The gurrier is unleashed in him

Mr.Micro

walshb wrote: »

But that's Bertie all the time. When he's rattled and on the ropes he really shows his lack of class and character. The gurrier is unleashed in him

Yes ,he is not a debater ,he just lets himself down and turns nasty .Mr Spin he is not.

juuge

Mr.Micro wrote: »

Yes ,he is not a debater ,he just lets himself down and turns nasty .Mr Spin he is not.

Yeah you're right he's not a debater he’s a 'master debater'

sovtek

I for one am getting in on this.

marcsignal

sovtek wrote: »

I for one am getting in on this.

Excellent Sovtek !! I'm Defo flying home and signing on for the day for that !!

sovtek

marcsignal wrote: »

Excellent Sovtek !! I'm Defo flying home and signing on for the day for that !!

Cushty...although I'd rather be in Dachau