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Dont cut our pay, Tax everyone else instead!!!

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13567…12

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    #62
    jimmmy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,539 ✭✭✭jimmmy


    Count Dooku wrote: »
    How many of them were on permanent positions?
    All of permanent workers in civil services are still keeping their jobs, because it will be more expensive to fire them, due huge redundancy packages.
    I think that it is a good time to introduce 40% tax for everybody in civil service, who in permanent position and worked more then 5 years as price for job security.
    Without cuts introduced, it will be impossible to fire all unused staff. So, lets them pay for their job security

    I first proposed that, many months ago, and named it "JST"....a Job Security Tax. The security of long term permanent public sector workers is a perk that should be taxed. Would you prefer a job in the private sector or the public sector on 50k a year, the public sector average ? Working in the secure public sector , with its security, still subsidised pension, more sickies, more holidays, etc is a perk work maybe 10k a year minimum. Our average public service pay is 40% more than the average public service pay in the EC ( according to Eurostat ) : unless our public service pay and pensions are cut 40% I propose a sizeable JST as being the fairest way to reduce our unsustainable government borrowing.


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    #63
    Count Dooku
    Registered Users Posts: 2,416 ✭✭✭Count Dooku


    ei.sdraob wrote: »
    those figures are several years old
    In this case it is even worse, because average PS salary was only growing during last few years


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    #64
    Gurgle
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,064 ✭✭✭Gurgle


    Tipp Man wrote: »
    there is a big difference between someone who has been working for 20 years and is now unemployed and someone who has been on the dole for the last 20 years yet this is not refelcted in the welfare system which is completly wrong in my mind
    Yes, the difference is that the person who has never worked gets far more benefits.

    The fact that its a viable lifestyle choice to sit around at home scratching your arse is the most damning indictment of our social welfare system.

    A couple with 3 kids are better off on welfare than for one parent to take a job at €35k.


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    #65
    Count Dooku
    Registered Users Posts: 2,416 ✭✭✭Count Dooku


    Gurgle wrote: »
    Nobody wants to pay for overpriced services. Everybody wants efficiency and value for their money. Hardly an issue thats unique to the public sector.
    Why only in private sector it can be done through redundancies and pay cuts, but public sector must be exception?

    Gurgle wrote: »
    The problem with public sector is not what the staff are paid, its how the departments are managed. The health boards for example have literally thousands of well qualified IT staff, but when they want/need something done they farm the work out to 'consultants'. When they buy medicines, they go to a middle-man who takes a healthy mark-up.

    The incompetence and waste in the government is not and has never been at the level of the ordinary people in the civil service.
    Government is only defining policies, but how those policies have been implemented is primary responsibility of public sector staff
    Could you find any policy from any minister to make public services inefficient and overstaffed?


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    #66
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    Count Dooku wrote: »
    ... Could you find any policy from any minister to make public services inefficient and overstaffed?

    Decentralisation.
    Formation of HSE.


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    #67
    Count Dooku
    Registered Users Posts: 2,416 ✭✭✭Count Dooku


    P. Breathnach wrote: »
    Decentralisation.
    Formation of HSE.
    Decentralisation and centralisation(formation of HSE) both went wrong - agreed
    May be something wrong in public services, if they cannot implement any policy


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    #68
    Gurgle
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,064 ✭✭✭Gurgle


    Count Dooku wrote: »
    Why only in private sector it can be done through redundancies and pay cuts, but public sector must be exception?
    The public sector has already taken a pay cut of 9%. There are regular rounds of redundancy / early retirement deals in the public sector.


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    #69
    Tipp Man
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,025 ✭✭✭Tipp Man


    Gurgle wrote: »
    The public sector has already taken a pay cut of 9%. There are regular rounds of redundancy / early retirement deals in the public sector.

    Isn't that 9% the highest rate and isn't that before tax relief??


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    #70
    gandalf
    Registered Users Posts: 26,458 ✭✭✭✭gandalf


    Gurgle wrote: »
    The public sector has already taken a pay cut of 9%. There are regular rounds of redundancy / early retirement deals in the public sector.

    I've just done the figures and my take home pay is down 30% from what it was 2 years ago. I have had to change jobs 3 times this year to stay employed and they are complaining about 9% which is not a pay cut but paying into a defined pension which the majority like me in the private sector will never have a chance to avail of.

    I really don't think Jimmy should have bothered emailing the Guinness book of records about the public sector in Ireland he should just send the figures to the IMF so they can ready themselves for the work they are going to have to do in the near future.


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    #71
    Count Dooku
    Registered Users Posts: 2,416 ✭✭✭Count Dooku


    Tipp Man wrote: »
    Isn't that 9% the highest rate and isn't that before tax relief??
    No
    Government didn’t want to touch pension of retired civil servants, this why they did this as levy


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    #72
    MrMicra
    Closed Accounts Posts: 457 ✭✭MrMicra


    Gurgle wrote: »
    To rephrase your post (and summarize half the other posts on this thread)

    "I don't want to lose money, let someone else pay"

    But what' wrong with that? In essence the public sector is saying "I don't want to lose money (though obviously they will) let's all pay higher taxes"

    The private sector is saying "I don't want to pay higher taxes cut public sector wages".

    There are two groups of people whose interests on the matter of the public sector pay bill are different. They may not be diametrically opposed in the way that certain people claim but they are different.

    I am a private sector worker and I would like to minimise the amount of additional tax that I will have to pay and ensure that my children and grandchildren don't pay for the current 'overspend' (question begging but that's how I see it) in the public sector pay bill for 50 years.

    I would also like to see decisions about reducing social welfare expenditures be made from a social engineering standpoint and not a panicked money saving standpoint.

    As a consequence I would like to see the greater part (and perhaps an 'objectively' unfair part) of the correction in the Irish government's current account come from a reduction in public sector wages. This will necessarily involve some hardship especially as the axe must fall on the lower and middle pay ranges.

    However the axe has fallen on the lower and middle pay ranges in the private sector.


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    #73
    Tipp Man
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,025 ✭✭✭Tipp Man


    Count Dooku wrote: »
    No
    Government didn’t want to touch pension of retired civil servants, this why they did this as levy

    Are you saying there is no tax relief on the pension levy??


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    #74
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    Count Dooku wrote: »
    Decentralisation and centralisation(formation of HSE) both went wrong - agreed
    May be something wrong in public services, if they cannot implement any policy

    You asked for ministerial policy that made public services inefficient/overstaffed; I gave you two relatively recent big illustrations [there are oodles of other instances also, not all of them very much in the public eye]. So you blame the public service anyway. Methinks you are wearing blinkers.


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    #75
    Zzippy
    Registered Users Posts: 14,166 ✭✭✭✭Zzippy


    Tipp Man wrote: »
    Are you saying there is no tax relief on the pension levy??

    AFAIK the pension levy is deducted from gross salary, but we still pay tax on the gross salary. Whereas the private sector worker gets tax relief on his pension contributions. Ergo - its not a pension contribution, its a pay cut.


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    #76
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #77
    Diarmuid
    Registered Users Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭Diarmuid


    MrMicra wrote: »
    But what' wrong with that? In essence the public sector is saying "I don't want to lose money (though obviously they will) let's all pay higher taxes"

    The private sector is saying "I don't want to pay higher taxes cut public sector wages".
    Well considering on group is being paid 26% more than the other I would see the latter option as being more fair.


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    #78
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    donegalfella wrote: »
    This post has been deleted.

    It is easy to create a self-evident truth by treating unproven assumptions as facts.


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    #79
    Diarmuid
    Registered Users Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭Diarmuid


    donegalfella wrote: »
    This post has been deleted.
    This would be somewhat acceptable if there was a substantial penalty in pay to balance situation. The ironic thing is that the inverse is true! There's penalty in pay and pension to hold a less stable job! Incredible.


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    #80
    ragg
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,853 ✭✭✭ragg


    Just cut the public salary by 50% - when they strike offer them a percentage in a sliding scale to come back - the last 20% to come back get sacked..

    Problem solved


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    #81
    dearg lady
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,091 ✭✭✭dearg lady


    I've said it before, and I'll say it again, the government have used the media to very effectively divide the country public v private. But I genuinely don't believe it needs to be like this,and I don't think lies and half truths do the debate any good.

    I feel genuinely very lucky to have a job, and while I might not like it(!) I know pay cuts are necessary. I have a lot of symapthy for anyone who has lost a job, and I wouldn't like to be in that position, but I most probably will be when my contract runs out.

    I really don't think huge blanket taxes/wage cuts across the public sector are the answer. What I would like to see introduced is performance related pay. I've worked in public sector and private sector, and it seems to be the fairest way. There is the potential for abuse but I would imagine the pros outweigh the cons.

    I definitely think it should be easier to fire staff in the public sector. I've seen people completely and utterly take the p*ss, and it seems to eb near impossible to remove these people.

    There are huge huge saving s to be made through cost cutting outside of wages, the amount of waste in the public sector is disgraceful, there are cheaper ways to do things.

    Lastly(but not least) I think a small paycut in the short term is necessary to keep the country afloat. Ideally as time goes on, salaries for those deserve it would increase, and for those who don't it would stagnate.

    Could anyone point me in the direction of a link to this statistic about 4% of population paying 48% of tax? I'd be surprised if this was correct tbh.


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    #82
    ei.sdraob
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,376 ✭✭✭ei.sdraob


    why do people and public sector unions keep referring to the government as a third party?

    they are part/subset of the public sector no?? another side of same coin....


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    #83
    Cuchulain
    Closed Accounts Posts: 312 ✭✭Cuchulain


    Diarmuid wrote: »
    Well considering on group is being paid 26% more than the other I would see the latter option as being more fair.

    I have to laugh at these "reports". Does it take into account that the public sector as an average is higher qualified than the private sector. How can you compare guards or lecturers to posts in the private sector?

    Its easy to sway figures when all the facts are not taken into consideration. That combined with a gullible audience :rolleyes:


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    #84
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    Cuchulain wrote: »
    I have to laugh at these "reports". Does it take into account that the public sector as an average is higher qualified than the private sector.

    Yes.
    How can you compare guards or lecturers to posts in the private sector?

    With difficulty.
    Its easy to sway figures when all the facts are not taken into consideration. That combined with a gullible audience :rolleyes:

    It's equally easy to dismiss something without considering it fairly.

    Don't take it second-hand: read the original report at http://www.esri.ie/UserFiles/publications/20091008143902/WP321.pdf


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    #85
    gandalf
    Registered Users Posts: 26,458 ✭✭✭✭gandalf


    Well I suppose Cuchulain we could compare costs for those jobs between their peers in other European Nations. My guess would be that they are overpaid in some cases substaintally compared to those as well.


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    #86
    mickoneill30
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,073 ✭✭✭mickoneill30


    Cuchulain wrote: »
    Does it take into account that the public sector as an average is higher qualified than the private sector.

    Have you got a link for that?
    Must be more qualified than the public sectors in other countries too.


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    #87
    Permabear
    Closed Accounts Posts: 39,022 ✭✭✭✭Permabear


    This post has been deleted.


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    #88
    The Saint
    Registered Users Posts: 1,932 ✭✭✭The Saint


    Cuchulain wrote: »
    How can you compare guards or lecturers to posts in the private sector?

    I don't recall this being highlighted by the PS when they were given large pay increases under benchmarking when jobs were being compared to those in the private sector.


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    #89
    P. Breathnach
    Registered Users Posts: 12,089 ✭✭✭✭P. Breathnach


    donegalfella wrote: »
    This post has been deleted.

    What we need is decided by social consensus. Whenever there is a proposal that a service be cut, we find people making the case against that particular cut. For example, the reduction in the numbers of Special Needs Assistants in schools caused uproar among the parents of children with special needs.
    Overcompensated: Per the ESRI, the gap between public and private sector pay is now 26 percent.

    I don't disagree with that. It does not follow that public servants are overcompensated by 26%.
    Malingering: The average amount of "sick leave" for female civil servants is 14 days a year. This rises to 17 days a year for women over 55. But, sure, why not give public-sector women an extra three weeks off work every year. We know how demanding their jobs are.

    So sick leave is a reliable index of malingering?
    Inefficient: Oh, yes, the alleged inefficiency of the public sector would surely be an "unproven assumption." :rolleyes:

    Silly faces do not suddenly convert an unproven assumption into a proven one. No organisation involving people is 100% efficient, and you have not even attempted to make the case that the public service is unduly inefficient.


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    #90
    Twin-go
    Closed Accounts Posts: 994 ✭✭✭Twin-go


    If the Government decides to force pay cut on the PS or tax increases on everybody it is taking the "easy" way out.
    What is needed is a complete overhaul of the PS. Businees Process Improvment/Six Sigma projects should be undertaken to remove ALL PS waste.
    Make it effective and lean service. Cut out the fat. Make it value for our money. That should easily bring in the required savings and more.

    When this is done there should be another round of benchmarking.

    The PS have had it too good for too long. It needs to be run like a business. It need to deliver the best value for money to the people of Ireland.


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    #91
    fl4pj4ck
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,000 ✭✭✭fl4pj4ck


    the answer to all the questions: let the artist start paying taxes.


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