Unions on Frontline..

nesf

Happening right now. Unions being extremely unclear on any actual details behind the "10 point plan". So far, "maybe no increases in wages". "Wages cuts only instead of job losses".

Milstream

typical union man couldnt answer a straight forward question.they are really pi$%ing me off. 10 point plan my arse

Aidric

I was nearly on the floor laughing at that fudging git O Connor just there. As Pat Kenny rightly said "I'm flabbergasted". Does this guy understand basic economics or is he living in cuckooland? It's typical of their militant stance.

Ooooh Pat not happy with that house remark!

Victor_M

Jasus, Pat lashed out at him nicely there over his 'trophy house' comment, that fuppin' clown Jack O'connor is giving me chest pains.

nuttz

did ye see the look on Kenny's face when the remark was made about his house, priceless

gandalf

How can people follow these idiots out onto the streets. Jack O'Connor is showing himself up as a person who shouldn't be allowed run a market stall let alone a union. The so-called 10 point plan is being shown up as a whooly socialist fantasy that the Labour party of Michael Foot would be proud of.

Pathetic!

nesf

Rojomcdojo wrote: »

Ooooh Pat not happy with that house remark!

He's damn right though. He built his house over 20 years ago. It's not like he recently purchased a glorious mansion he can throw rocks at the plebs from.

nesf

Aidric wrote: »

I was nearly on the floor laughing at that fudging git O Connor just there. As Pat Kenny rightly said "I'm flabbergasted". Does this guy understand basic economics or is he living in cuckooland? It's typical of their militant stance.

He refused to answer where the money would come from other than these unspecified number of wealthy gits who earn an unspecified amount of money and taxing whom would raise an unspecified amount of cash.

It's all bull.

dodgyme

nesf wrote: »

He refused to answer where the money would come ..It's all bull.

Did someone call JOD's name?

yoshytoshy

Lordy lord ,
Someone should take the carrot off his stick and stick it somewhere else

nesf

dodgyme wrote: »

Did someone call JOD's name?

And that's got what to do with what?

ParkRunner

Even as a civil servant I was cringing at that. The guy in the audience was right in that an opportunity was missed to have a meaningful debate about finding a way out of the current position. Thank god I have no mortgage, debt or dependants.

Wheely

Jack's an absolute useless twat. Not worth his €124,895 or anything close to it. Who the hell does he think he is leading people onto the streets. Muppet.

nesf

EF wrote: »

Even as a civil servant I was cringing at that. The guy in the audience was right in that an opportunity was missed to have a meaningful debate about finding a way out of the current position. Thank god I have no mortgage, debt or dependants.

Simple version is this:

If we extend the borrowing for double the length of time we'll more than double our borrowing up to around 40% of GDP (and that's assuming no extra nasty surprises over the next 8 years which I wouldn't count on).

This isn't just going to affect us, it'll screw over our kids too. They're going to be paying off the interest built up on this debt and paying it back.


This deficit we face isn't being caused by NAMA. NAMA isn't going to be funded out of the public purse. It's coming from tax not being able to cover public wages and the social welfare bill. We either raise taxes (on everyone, not just the wealthy), cut public wage spending or cut social welfare or we borrow money and end up paying back more than we would have lost to cuts. We'll have to do all of those, raise taxes, cut wages, cut social welfare and borrow some money (we can't avoid borrowing money). The unions are trying to convince people we can avoid 2 of those 4. That is a lie, we cannot do so and there's no free or painless way to avoid cuts, if we borrow we just create more of a burden for our kids to shoulder and that isn't exactly painless either.

Milstream

What a tool that Jack O' Connor is. Made a complete muppet of himself and this man the leader of one of the head unions in Ireland. Imagine coming on national TV and talking utter sh&te. This guy represents thousand and thousands of people my god what a shower of ......... [EMAIL="wan@Im"]Im[/EMAIL] so disappointed and angry at that fool. For once Pat Kenny put someone in there place.

nesf

Actually, I'm ****ing incensed by this talk of borrowing more money to ease the pain.

My 3 year old son is who's going to be paying for this. When he grows up and enters the workforce the tax he pays will depend on the borrowing of my generation. Pain we avoid today by borrowing does not disappear, it is felt by our children when the interest bill has to be paid out of their wages.

It is utter lunacy to suggest we borrow more for current expenditure. That is literally, paying the wages of nurses and Gardaí of today out of the wages our children earn while they attempt to pay for the wages of nurses and Gardaí of their time.

It's not free, it's not painless it's ****ing over kids so we can avoid creating a little pain now. No one should think this is worth it, our kids will have enough economic **** to deal with without us dropping a whole heap of debt onto their laps.

/rant

eoinbn

nesf wrote: »

Actually, I'm ****ing incensed by this talk of borrowing more money to ease the pain.

My 3 year old son is who's going to be paying for this. When he grows up and enters the workforce the tax he pays will depend on the borrowing of my generation. Pain we avoid today by borrowing does not disappear, it is felt by our children when the interest bill has to be paid out of their wages.

It is utter lunacy to suggest we borrow more for current expenditure. That is literally, paying the wages of nurses and Gardaí of today out of the wages our children earn while they attempt to pay for the wages of nurses and Gardaí of their time.

It's not free, it's not painless it's ****ing over kids so we can avoid creating a little pain now. No one should think this is worth it, our kids will have enough economic **** to deal with without us dropping a whole heap of debt onto their laps.

/rant

The effect is much more immediate than that. Here is why ICTU's 8 year plan is complete nonsense.

Lets start with a deficit of €22bn. The unions want to reduce the rate of cuts by 1/2(well they want no cuts, but lets ignore that), so €2bn cuts per year. €2bn cuts=€1bn reduction in deficit as taxes fall. So now we have a deficit of €21bn next year, but with an extra billion in interest and an extra billion in debt repayments(5% interest, 20 year bond-longterm),so infact it's €23bn.

So after 8 years with good growth we would end up with a similar deficit of €20-25bn deficit, but with tax rates of 80%, or public sector workers working for minimum wage as our debt repayments would be €25bn per year!

nesf

eoinbn wrote: »

The effect is much more immediate than that. Here is why ICTU's 8 year plan is complete nonsense.

Lets start with a deficit of €22bn. The unions want to reduce the rate of cuts by 1/2(well they want no cuts, but lets ignore that), so €2bn cuts per year. €2bn cuts=€1bn reduction in deficit as taxes fall. So now we have a deficit of €21bn next year, but with an extra billion in interest and an extra billion in debt repayments(5% interest, 20 year bond-longterm),so infact it's €23bn.

So after 8 years with good growth we would end up with a similar deficit of €20-25bn deficit, but with tax rates of 80%, or public sector workers working for minimum wage as our debt repayments would be €25bn per year!

True, but I was getting at the general attitude to borrowing as a solution. You just create a new problem for tomorrow by borrowing for current expenditure. If you factor poor or mediocre growth into your figures the future is far worse.

hallelujajordan

eoinbn wrote: »

The effect is much more immediate than that. Here is why ICTU's 8 year plan is complete nonsense.

Lets start with a deficit of €22bn. The unions want to reduce the rate of cuts by 1/2(well they want no cuts, but lets ignore that), so €2bn cuts per year. €2bn cuts=€1bn reduction in deficit as taxes fall. So now we have a deficit of €21bn next year, but with an extra billion in interest and an extra billion in debt repayments(5% interest, 20 year bond-longterm),so infact it's €23bn.

So after 8 years with good growth we would end up with a similar deficit of €20-25bn deficit, but with tax rates of 80%, or public sector workers working for minimum wage as our debt repayments would be €25bn per year!

The biggest eyeopener for me in last nights 'display' by Jack O'Connor was that it was patently clear that the unions have not costed their 10-point-plan and have no idea whether or not it is feasible. The details were torn apart by those who understand economics and O'Connor was left to look like the fool that he is . . . The unions are a bloody disgrace. . . They played a significant role in creating this mess through social partnership and now they expect the taxpayer to protect an inefficient and overpaid public sector. . .

I hope people who considered taking to the streets on Friday can see through this crap and instead turn up for work and try to keep this economy alive.

Diarmuid

Oh that was priceless. Poor auld Jack must have flunked his junior cert maths.

irish_bob

last night was a pr disaster for the unions , pat kenny quickly took apart o,connors bogus 10 point plan , PK done some service for his country last night , since the FRONTLINE show began , i have a new found respect for the man

as for the rest of the panel , moore mcdowell spelled it out while fintan o toole didnt want to debate the public sector pay bill or the siptu ten point plan at all , instead he wanted to discuss what ireland should be like , i notice the man is fixated on NAMA too , perhaps he comes in here under the name NEW DUBLINER

O' Connor was on Marian Finucane on saturday morning on radio one talking about his life story.

He's on the national executive of the labour party.He described himself as a socialist and attended Sinn Féins ÁRD'fheis.

Hardline nonsense views like what he spouts do not a labour voter make me.

His membership of their NEC which " oversees and co-ordinates the policies, organisation and activities of the Labour Party." link is worrysome.

Thats what would be getting into bed with and wagging the Fine Gael dog in our next government unfortunately...
Roll on 1500 million a week defecits when he gets his crazy hands on the coffers.

Aidric

irish_bob wrote: »

last night was a pr disaster for the unions , pat kenny quickly took apart o,connors bogus 10 point plan , PK done some service for his country last night , since the FRONTLINE show began , i have a new found respect for the man

Yep, Kenny excelled last night. He successfully challenged the fanciful notions of O Connor and exposed him as nothing more than a fantasist.

Seth Brundle

for those like me that didn't get to see Pat's retort...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV8eGD9V6aM

Alcatel

All I can say is holy hell... The unions really think there's some super rich class out there? Well, as the tax lawyer showed up (and she was most refreshing of all, just the facts ma'am) the 'super rich' if we make no cuts to social welfare and pay bill (80% of our spending) is any couple earning more than 75,000 euro comboned.

"It's not about the money we make back" says Jack, looking at the floor, when told that taxing people over 100,000 euro will not claw back enough money.

"We can make cuts to the pay bill without touching pay, allowances, overtime or numbers," he repeats. (With Pat Kenny just shy of saying 'What the f***?')

God damn boys, we're up the river now.

meglome

Any idea when this Frontline show will be available on the RTE site?

Tipp Man

Its rare that you see someone who is in the public eye so much make such a complete ass of themselves on live television.

It would have been hilarious if it wasn't so bloody serious, the unions really have absolutely no clue about facts, figures or have any plan about how to help this country. And what was blatantly obvious they don't really give a **** either, just tax the super rich, they'll pay for it:mad:

Have to say I liked the tax advisor (can't think of her name), knew here stuff, knew all the numbers

Diarmuid

meglome wrote: »

Any idea when this Frontline show will be available on the RTE site?

it's already there. I watched it a few hours ago. google "rte frontline" will take you straight there

victor11

hallelujajordan wrote: »

The biggest eyeopener for me in last nights 'display' by Jack O'Connor was that it was patently clear that the unions have not costed their 10-point-plan and have no idea whether or not it is feasible. The details were torn apart by those who understand economics and O'Connor was left to look like the fool that he is . . . The unions are a bloody disgrace. . . They played a significant role in creating this mess through social partnership and now they expect the taxpayer to protect an inefficient and overpaid public sector. . .

I hope people who considered taking to the streets on Friday can see through this crap and instead turn up for work and try to keep this economy alive.

Here here - Well said.... Sheer lunacy at event the thought of taking to the streets.... are the schools going to be closed as a result of 'sickness'.... WHo has to take a day off to mind the kids if that happens (with no pay and an earful from my boss!).... Get real JOC & et Al

ei.sdraob

Diarmuid wrote: »

it's already there. I watched it a few hours ago. google "rte frontline" will take you straight there

yes wasnt there earlier today it seems

http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1059155