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

Diarmuid

Cuchulain wrote: »

I have to laugh at these "reports".

Why? Because the result isn't what you wanted to hear?

Count Dooku

P. Breathnach wrote: »

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.

It means never.
Everybody knows that if public service staff is in danger, they can delay any decision

There is only one solution – leave untouched critical services, like gardai, hospitals, schools, revenue, social welfare offices. Shut down everything else and then decide by national consensus what we can afford

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I don't disagree with that. It does not follow that public servants are overcompensated by 26%.

True
If we will include average sick leave, it will be even more

Gurgle

fl4pj4ck wrote: »

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

Yes, good plan.
Lets drive all those horrible tourist-attracting, revenue-generating artists away across the sea.

Gurgle

Count Dooku wrote: »

There is only one solution – leave untouched critical services, like gardai, hospitals, schools, revenue, social welfare offices. Shut down everything else...

I know I'll regret asking, but what is 'everything else', and how much does it cost?

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

joolsveer

Twin-go wrote: »

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.

Where are these well run businesses that should be emulated? Anglo Irish and the other banks?

Zulu

joolsveer wrote: »

Where are these well run businesses that should be emulated? Anglo Irish and the other banks?

Ryanair.

Riskymove

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

very true

What conclusion would you draw, then? That private-sector workers are undercompensated by 26 percent?

there may well be an element of that in certain areas

the problem is the structure of these studies and the use of averages etc....the conclusion that a 26% cut in all public servants pay would bring about wage parity is flawed

wage cuts should be based on how well particular areas did in the boom; certain areas increased way out of proportion...there are certain parts of the civil service for example, which 10 years ago used to be maybe 20% higher paid than the next lower grade but are now paid around twice as much (i.e. 100% more)....I think these should have higher cuts than the lowest paid etc

When it is reported that the average female public servant is off "sick" for three weeks every year, I think the taxpayer who is paying her wages has a right to know exactly what is going on. If it isn't malingering, what is it?

there is no evidence in the report about what it is....you simply have decided its malingering and in the face of no evidence either way you are happy your conclusion is correct.

the public service has a high proportion of women in its ranks and from what i can see a lot of this sick leave is to do with pregnancy related issues....which seems to be the same for the private sector


in addition, the public service has paid sick leave while not all the private sector does, thus you can expect more sick leave to be taken in such an environment...I would imagine that there is more sick leave taken in the private sector where sick leave is apid than where its not.

The Irish public sector has increased in size by approximately 25 percent since 2000. I have not noticed the 25 percent increase in the quality or efficiency of public services that has resulted from all this expenditure. Have you?

how would you know? what are the indicators etc

again, you are making a decision without any evidence

I

myself only notice that things seem to be getting worse. The number of Leaving Cert students attempting honours maths fell to a record low of 16 percent last year. The percentages doing honours physics and chemistry are now in single digits. These students were the beneficiaries of spending that increased by over 75 percent in real terms between 2000 and 2008 alone. So where are the outcomes? Where did all the money go?

the correlation between leaving cert results and the ability of teachers is always thrown around....I do not believe its that simple...i think there are many factors to this, not least of which is a general "dumbing down" in society

joolsveer

Zulu wrote: »

Ryanair.

I used Ryanair over the last weekend and service is not a word I would associate with this company. How would they provide public services?

Riskymove

Zulu wrote: »

Ryanair.

oh come on....how would that work

you'd need a credit card to ring the local guards and then you find out they actually are not in Dublin but "Dublin Mullingar"

free education but its €100 for each schoolbag

20goto10

c montgomery wrote: »

I have taken a pay cut of 11% already this year

Jesus only a mug would take that lying down.

The unions are employed to fight the workers corner. Of course they're going to put up a fight. If only the private sector would do the same we might not see all these bull**** paycuts going on. The way I see it we have lost our competitiveness because we are in the Euro and cannot devalue our currency. The UK is a perfect example, they have devalued their currency which has effectively slashed peoples wages compared to other countries without actually touching peoples pay packets. This talk about people need to slash their wages to increase our competitiveness is complete bull****. The governmentLed us into the euro completely blindfolded. It needs to come up with a better way of increasing competitiveness without touching our pay packets.

I'm a private sector worker and no ducker is touching my wages without a fight. Fair balls to the public sector for sticking up for themselves and good luck to them all.

jimmmy

joolsveer wrote: »

I used Ryanair over the last weekend and service is not a word I would associate with this company. How would they provide public services?

Because what we have at the moment is economically more reminiscent of the unionised Aer Lingus of 30 years ago. As said before, I remember having to fly with them in the seventies and early eighties to England, at a couple of hundred quid return. That was when money was money. Their employees and unions attitude then reminds me of the public service now. Fair play to Michael O'Leary, he has done more for Ireland in a day than all the union bosses done in their lifetime. Nearly 100 million people will fly it this year. One of the great Irish home-grown success stories.

Riskymove

jimmmy wrote: »

Fair play to Michael O'Leary,

indeed, but he uses a business model designed to make money from charges

the same model can not be applied to public services

I have also heard about how "he'd sort out the unions in the public sector"....I dont see how he could by taking the same approach as ryanair....

Stark

20goto10 wrote: »

Jesus only a mug would take that lying down.

The unions are employed to fight the workers corner. Of course they're going to put up a fight. If only the private sector would do the same we might not see all these bull**** paycuts going on. The way I see it we have lost our competitiveness because we are in the Euro and cannot devalue our currency. The UK is a perfect example, they have devalued their currency which has effectively slashed peoples wages compared to other countries without actually touching peoples pay packets. This talk about people need to slash their wages to increase our competitiveness is complete bull****. The governmentLed us into the euro completely blindfolded. It needs to come up with a better way of increasing competitiveness without touching our pay packets.

I'm a private sector worker and no ducker is touching my wages without a fight. Fair balls to the public sector for sticking up for themselves and good luck to them all.

That 1.3 billion has to come from somewhere (other than external borrowing or from private worker's pockets). If the unions were concerned about their poorly paid workers, then they'd help identify where the waste lies and help the Government to identify the sickeningly overpaid members of the public sector for wage corrections so that the people on realistic wages could be left alone. Instead, they're just going to beat their chests, hold a one day work stoppage (which have no effect other than to further damage the economy) and the Government will be forced to introduce another flat rate across the board pay cut. I hope all you public servants on 28k or whatever are happy that your union is doing so much to protect your interests, or rather the interests of those who would be much happier to share a 7% pay cut with you than have their salaries readjusted to a level that's more in line with their experience, qualifications and responsibilities.

Jarren

Ryanair all the way

ardmacha

the correlation between leaving cert results and the ability of teachers is always thrown around....I do not believe its that simple...i think there are many factors to this, not least of which is a general "dumbing down" in society

Exactly. There is little evidence of hordes of students wanting to do maths etc and of the education system stopping them. Rather the teachers are probably encouraging them while society, their parents etc want them to do law.

If the unions were concerned about their poorly paid workers, then they'd help identify where the waste lies and identifying the sickeningly overpaid members of the public sector for wage corrections so that the people on realistic wages could be left alone.

There is excess in the public service but most people don't benefit from it. It is interesting to see if the unions can agree that unjustified practices bonuses etc should be discontinued, so that everyone doesn't have to get an unfair across the board cut. Say (and I don't have the details) that prison officers get more of a bonus for unsocial hours etc than firemen, will the unions be willing to agree to reduce the prison officers, but not the firemen? In the year since all this started the government has had plenty of time to identify these issues and now is the time to address them.

jimmmy

Riskymove wrote: »

indeed, but he uses a business model designed to make money from charges

Whatever he does, it seems to work, as the cost of flying to the UK is now an awful lot less - charges and all - than with unionised Aer Lingus 30 years ago. Ryanair is one of the leading airlines in the world in terms of its success, I believe, and one of the few " brands" / businesses to come out of Ireland in the 20th century and do well commercially. Certainly Michael O'Leary would not tolerate the waste and efficiency in our public sector if he was running the country, any more than he would tolerate similar waste in his airline. There was an article in the paper ( front page of the Indo, main headline ) on Tuesday about a public sector worker getting paid over a million this last 4 or 5 years for doing nothing ; can you imagine Michael O'L tolerating that in Ryanair ?

20goto10

Stark wrote: »

That 1.3 billion has to come from somewhere (other than external borrowing or from private worker's pockets). If the unions were concerned about their poorly paid workers, then they'd help identify where the waste lies and help the Government to identify the sickeningly overpaid members of the public sector for wage corrections so that the people on realistic wages could be left alone. Instead, they're just going to beat their chests, hold a one day work stoppage (which have no effect other than to further damage the economy) and the Government will be forced to introduce another flat rate across the board pay cut. I hope all you public servants on 28k or whatever are happy that your union is doing so much to protect your interests, or rather the interests of those who would be much happier to share a 7% pay cut with you than have their salaries readjusted to a level that's more in line with their experience, qualifications and responsibilities.

Increasing our competitiveness increases our tax take and negates the need to dip into peoples pay cheques. For example, imagine people flocking into the republic from northern Ireland and the rest of the uk. My point is we can't and there doesn't seem to be a plan b. When they came up with the euro did they not stop and think what will be do when everything goes belly up? The uk did and and the sense to see a mess like this coming. They had the sense to stay out.

I'm pro Europe, but very much anti- euro (currency). Everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room. The euro has left us dead in the water and feeding off the bodies is only going to get us so far.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

P. Breathnach

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

"Throw-money-at-every-what"? Oh, problem, you said "problem". So if money is spent to address a problem, you can then withdraw the money and the problem gets solved. I already instanced SNAs in schools. That is where social consensus took us, to a view that children with special needs should have provision made for them. It's very much a matter of the genie being out of the bottle. Once that becomes part of the social compact, its continuance is expected. That's where we are now. If such provision is to be withdrawn, we need some sort of public discourse to decide what we, as a society, want. It cannot reasonably be rolled up into a ball with a lot of other things and dumped.

That is true. It only goes to show that it is a million times easier for governments to ratchet up public spending than it is for them to make necessary cuts.

No great disagreement there. That's the nature of social consensus. The question to be decided is what constitutes a "necessary" cut.

What conclusion would you draw, then? That private-sector workers are undercompensated by 26 percent?

It's too big a question for a person as lazy as I am. Let us simply note that I do not think that a public service premium of 26% means, ipso facto, that public service employees are overcompensated by exactly that amount.

When it is reported that the average female public servant is off "sick" for three weeks every year, I think the taxpayer who is paying her wages has a right to know exactly what is going on. If it isn't malingering, what is it?

Consider the possibility that it might be illness.

The Irish public sector has increased in size by approximately 25 percent since 2000. I have not noticed the 25 percent increase in the quality or efficiency of public services that has resulted from all this expenditure. Have you?

You are asking me for subjective judgements.

I myself only notice that things seem to be getting worse. The number of Leaving Cert students attempting honours maths fell to a record low of 16 percent last year. The percentages doing honours physics and chemistry are now in single digits. These students were the beneficiaries of spending that increased by over 75 percent in real terms between 2000 and 2008 alone. So where are the outcomes? Where did all the money go?

Education questions are notoriously slippery to deal with. There are so many variables involved that it is difficult to arrive at many solid conclusions. I do have opinions on such matters, but none I can back up with worthwhile evidence. Accordingly, it would be a distraction to pursue the question.

Gurgle

Stark wrote: »

That 1.3 billion has to come from somewhere.

Take it straight off the scroungers.

And when (:rolleyes:) the admin sections of all the government departments are sorted out to run efficiently, there'll be a fair number of civil servants to re-assign as welfare fraud investigators.

Now thats a good place to start with performance related pay.

uriah

Stark wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve . The folks in the Department of Finance will tell you that we're currently past the peak of the curve at present. Same issue is occurring with the tax intake on cigarettes.

But if you increase tax rates for those in the public service (the sitting ducks) earning above a certain level, tax take is sure to increase.

All you have to do then, in the interest of equality and fairness, is to apply the same rates to those who earn the same amount in the private sector .

Nobody can object to that. If/when things improve, rates can be reduced .

JonnyC

Gurgle wrote: »

Take it straight off the scroungers.

And when (:rolleyes:) the admin sections of all the government departments are sorted out to run efficiently, there'll be a fair number of civil servants to re-assign as welfare fraud investigators.

Now thats a good place to start with performance related pay.

Its grand for the likes of you with your public job, it gives you plenty of time to rachet up the posts here draw your fat salary for doing sweet f*** all except be a mod here

jhegarty

jhegarty wrote: »

You can't tax the uber-wealthy too much because they will move to Monaco at the drop of a hat.


You have to keep it at a level where becoming a tax exile is too much effort.

http://www.finance.gov.ie/Viewtxt.asp?DocID=5647&CatID=54&m=p&StartDate=01+January+2009

• 38% are estimated to be entirely exempt from Income Tax.
  
• The top 20% of income earners pay 77% of all Income Tax.
  
• The top 2.5% of income earners pay one third of all income tax
  
• The top 6.5% of income earners pay half of all income tax
  
• The top 12.5% of income earners pay almost two thirds of all income tax

.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Gurgle

JonnyC wrote: »

Its grand for the likes of you with your public job, it gives you plenty of time to rachet up the posts here draw your fat salary for doing sweet f*** all except be a mod here

Wrong on all scores mate.

Private sector job, working away quite busily here in between posts, which are typed while waiting for an averaging measurement to settle down.

My 'vested interest' in the issue is more to do with my kids not being taught in over-crowded classrooms by the bottom dwellers who just-about graduate. Also, its nice to go to hospital and see doctors and nurses who are a) awake and b) sentient.

So what are you doing for a living that leaves you the time to make erroneous assumptions?

JonnyC

Gurgle wrote: »

Wrong on all scores mate.

Private sector job, working away quite busily here in between posts, which are typed while waiting for an averaging measurement to settle down.

My 'vested interest' in the issue is more to do with my kids not being taught in over-crowded classrooms by the bottom dwellers who just-about graduate. Also, its nice to go to hospital and see doctors and nurses who are a) awake and b) sentient.

So what are you doing for a living that leaves you the time to make erroneous assumptions?

Okay so are the scroungers that are screwing the system? Who are the people you have a chip on your shoulder againist, young lads out of school, single mums, men working 40 year have been let go.

Work in the private sector also myself. I like the way you said "working away busily between posts".

MrMicra

In fairness gurgle there are 400,000 people on the dole and there was 100,000 on the dole in december '07. That means that a quarter of the people on the dole are scroungers and three quarters are not.

Gurgle

MrMicra wrote: »

In fairness gurgle there are 400,000 people on the dole and there was 100,000 on the dole in december '07. That means that a quarter of the people on the dole are scroungers and three quarters are not.

Less than a quarter, presumably some (maybe even most) of those in December '07 were genuine cases.

Lets guess 75% of the social welfare payments in December 07 were legitimate and genuine.

So now those other 25% from then are 8% of the current cases.
Cut the social welfare spend of €20 billion for this year by 8% and we've saved..... €1.6 billion.

Without increasing taxes, cutting pay etc etc...

-edit- dammit I got the maths wrong.
25% of 100,000 is 6.25% of 400,000 -> €1.25 billion.

Stark

20goto10 wrote: »

Increasing our competitiveness increases our tax take and negates the need to dip into peoples pay cheques. For example, imagine people flocking into the republic from northern Ireland and the rest of the uk. My point is we can't and there doesn't seem to be a plan b. When they came up with the euro did they not stop and think what will be do when everything goes belly up? The uk did and and the sense to see a mess like this coming. They had the sense to stay out.

I'm pro Europe, but very much anti- euro (currency). Everyone is ignoring the elephant in the room. The euro has left us dead in the water and feeding off the bodies is only going to get us so far.

The UK has a currency that is strong enough (just about) to stand on its own. If Ireland had stayed out of the Euro, we'd now be like Iceland. Massively devalued currency, massive inflation due to imports costing vastly more, which would render our savings pretty much worthless and having to repay foreign debt using a worthless currency. Also, the European central bank wouldn't be as keen to keep us afloat, leaving the IMF as the only source of borrowing. And I'd like to see how the public service would fair in that arrangement.

Gurgle wrote: »

Take it straight off the scroungers.

And when () the admin sections of all the government departments are sorted out to run efficiently, there'll be a fair number of civil servants to re-assign as welfare fraud investigators.

Now thats a good place to start with performance related pay.

There's a further 1bn to come off the "scroungers" (or the "vulnerable", depending on which side of the fence you lie).

The 1.3bn can come from making the admin sections of the government departments run more efficiently. The Govnernment hasn't said the the 1.3 billion in savings needs to come from pay cuts, just that the savings have to be made somehow. The problem with reassignments under the current system is the public servants won't stand for being reassigned to a job that has a lower salary.