Prvatise all Semi-State bodies?

funnyname

Yes, some (list the ones you think should be privatised) or no, mods can one of you please add a poll as I haven't beano how do it.

It's time to trim some of the fat, it would introduce more competition, reduce the government's pension bill, reduce the deficit and we would be able to learn from the UK's mistakes and make it work or us better than it did for them.

Yixian

Selling off semi-state bodies raises a couple million that doesn't really go anywhere to alleviating debt and leads to poor, disjointed service in the future.

Your profile says you're from London, how do you think privatisation affected the rail service in this country?

There's you're answer.

Ireland has done well to stay relatively away from that Thatcherite ****.

ei.sdraob

while im in favour of privatization in general there are problems

example:
lets say you completely privatize ESB completely today

tomorrow morning they will close shop and move to continent where there is a proper market + infrastructure, bigger profits and a regulator thats not hellbent on destroying you

funnyname

Yixian wrote: »

Selling off semi-state bodies raises a couple million that doesn't really go anywhere to alleviating debt and leads to poor, disjointed service in the future.

Your profile says you're from London, how do you think privatisation affected the rail service in this country?

There's you're answer.

Ireland has done well to stay relatively away from that Thatcherite ****.

That's just one example you're pointing out I just asked the question, all, some or none. We have the example of how things went over here, Ireland can learn from them, it's not something that's going to happen in the morning just something else for the government to consider.

The sale would raise billions not just millions, however given the way the FF has run the country for the past 10 years they might not be able to get it right and in the end only their cronies would be the people who would benefit from it.

But it's worth considering!

Permabear

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silverharp

I'd agree with the idea, its primary benefit would not even be raising money, its the fact that if a particular business has monopoly backing it will be less efficient and this affects everyone. Post Office , the airports........

Welease

donegalfella wrote: »

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The growth/decline of the rail service was not just about the management/ownership of the railways in the UK, as you seem to suggest. The advent of the mass produced car/trucks and motorway system would have had a greater effect than anthing done from within the railways themselves.

Cufflink

donegalfella wrote: »

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Huh. 'It wasn't the idea that was bad, it was just the execution'. And, of course, you can always find some reason why your pet dogma failed. When Pinochet murdered Allende because he nationalized a few companies, he set about creating a model of free market economy based on the pristine ideas of Milton Friedman, ideas which, when actually put into practice, caused the Chilean economy to crash and burn in about six weeks. And what was the reaction of the Friedmanites? 'Oh, Pinocet didn't go far enough', or 'Oh, it would have worked if it had been done right'.

The irony was that in order to stabalize the collapsing economy, Pinochet ended up nationalizing far more than Allende had ever dreamed of. The 'free market' at work, eh?

zootroid

I'm in favour of privatisation in general, in fact I don't think the state has any business running a company that could be run just as easily in the private sector.

But simply privatising these companies won't work, you would just be swapping public sector monopolies for private sector monopolies. The end result would be the same, the consumer loses out.

Permabear

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Permabear

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peasant

From Chile back to Ireland

There is one minor problem with privatising everything in Ireland and that is the generally pretty small market which is even further complicated by how thinnly spread we are in rural Ireland.

Private companies need the economies of scale ...publicly supported semi-states can circumvent those via subsidies.

In a purely private supply situation, half of Ireland would be empty now, due to lack of services.

Diarmuid

Yixian wrote: »

leads to poor, disjointed service in the future

We are talking about privatising CIE, Dublin Bus etc. I think we are starting from a poor disjointed service. It can only get better.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

tomorrow morning they will close shop and move to continent where there is a proper market + infrastructure, bigger profits and a regulator thats not hellbent on destroying you

If ESB can't make profits as the dominant provider in the most expensive electricity market in Europe, how the hell are they going to make money elsewhere?

View

Yixian wrote: »

Selling off semi-state bodies raises a couple million that doesn't really go anywhere to alleviating debt and leads to poor, disjointed service in the future.

The state has privatised a number of companies over the year (approx. 10 or so, I think). Some of these are no longer in business due to market conditions, others manage to operate fine without the government owning them.

The assumption that state ownership means there is no "poor, disjointed service" is just plain crazy. Ownership of a company - if it is being managed properly (i.e. on behalf of its shareholders - whether public or private) - should have no bearing on its operational execution.

View

peasant wrote: »

From Chile back to Ireland

There is one minor problem with privatising everything in Ireland and that is the generally pretty small market which is even further complicated by how thinnly spread we are in rural Ireland.

Private companies need the economies of scale ...publicly supported semi-states can circumvent those via subsidies.

In a purely private supply situation, half of Ireland would be empty now, due to lack of services.

Two points:
i) There is no rule that says only semi-states can receive subsidies. A lot of private companies wouldn't object to subsidies (e.g. the Internal air routes, such as Dublin <-> Sligo etc),
ii) Half of Ireland practically is empty. It isn't economic to provide services to the villages and houses scattered here and there, hence the reason why most rural communities are totally car dependent and have poor services.

erictheviking

Privatise them my arse!!! :eek:
Don't you people realise that as taxpayers you own them:) They are public property with a small percentage owned by employees.
If the government sells them will they give you a share of the profit? Will they f***! They will probably hand the money over to their banker mates!

SkepticOne

zootroid wrote: »

I'm in favour of privatisation in general, in fact I don't think the state has any business running a company that could be run just as easily in the private sector.

But simply privatising these companies won't work, you would just be swapping public sector monopolies for private sector monopolies. The end result would be the same, the consumer loses out.

Yes, one of the problems is that the ESB as well as owning most of the generating capacity also owns a significant portion of the distribution network, the last mile. They need to split off the power stations and have them competing for business from an independent distributor whose costs are strictly controlled. It is the near monopoly that is the problem.

ei.sdraob

SkepticOne wrote: »

Yes, one of the problems is that the ESB as well as owning most of the generating capacity also owns a significant portion of the distribution network, the last mile.

wrong wrong wrong

ESB doesnt own the grid
it was handed to a new state body called Eirgird (see below)

SkepticOne wrote: »

They need to split off the power stations and have them competing for business from an independent distributor whose costs are strictly controlled. It is the near monopoly that is the problem.

thats exactly what was done many years ago

Eirgrid (A separate and independent state body) owns and controls all the grid

ESB Power Generation is one of the companies within ESB Group responsible for selling electricity (30% of all electricity on this Island, some monopoly eh?) to the all ireland common auction/market which is regualted by SER

ESB Networks maintains the grid (gets paid for fixing faults etc for all electricity customers) and fiber networks etc

ESB Customer supply deals with customers

.

jimmycrackcorm

donegalfella wrote: »

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Very appropriately DonegalFella, you might do a comparison of the bus Service the Lough Swilly operate compared to Bus Eireann to see how much better privatizaion is.....

nesf

ei.sdraob wrote: »

wrong wrong wrong

ESB doesnt own the grid
it was handed to a new state body called Eirgird (see below)




thats exactly what was done many years ago

Eirgrid (A separate and independent state body) owns and controls all the grid

ESB Power Generation is one of the companies within ESB Group responsible for selling electricity (30% of all electricity on this Island, some monopoly eh?) to the all ireland common auction/market which is regualted by SER

ESB Networks maintains the grid (gets paid for fixing faults etc for all electricity customers) and fiber networks etc

ESB Customer supply deals with customers

.

You forgot ESBI.

nesf

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Very appropriately DonegalFella, you might do a comparison of the bus Service the Lough Swilly operate compared to Bus Eireann to see how much better privatizaion is.....

Well in fairness citylink is far superior to the competing Bus Eireann Routes. Then it is financially viable between cities, rural bus networks not so much.

ei.sdraob

nesf wrote: »

You forgot ESBI.

theres also Shared Services

i didnt want to confuse anyone, while trying to explain how things have changed in last 5-7 years and explain that ESB was essentially split up into several companies with different aims

we also now how a common market/auction for electricity

but

it is not the cheapest electricity that wins the bids, but the greenest (then cheapest) electricity gets priority, all while trying to maintain stability and no interruptions

yet another reason why electricity prices are high, we are subsidizing all the windmills which aint cheap

RGS

View wrote: »

Two points:
i) There is no rule that says only semi-states can receive subsidies. A lot of private companies wouldn't object to subsidies (e.g. the Internal air routes, such as Dublin <-> Sligo etc),
ii) Half of Ireland practically is empty. It isn't economic to provide services to the villages and houses scattered here and there, hence the reason why most rural communities are totally car dependent and have poor services.

The internal air operators, all private operators, obtain a subsidy to provide an air link between the regional airports and Dublin.

Cufflink

donegalfella wrote: »

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Ok, dungfellow, you got me: it took considerably longer than six weeks. Here are some actual facts, although I've noticed in the past that dogmatists when given the facts they demand just ignore them and demand more and more.

Fact: When Allende was murdered, Chilean unemployment was 4.3%; after 10 years of the free market, it had reached 22%.

Fact: In the same period, real poverty doubled from 20 to 40%.

Fact: Real wages declined by 40%.

Abolished: minimum wage, trade union negotiating rights, wealth and business taxes.

Privatised: the pension system, 212 state industries and 66 banks.

Fact: in the tenth year of the Chilean 'economic miracle' (1983/3) gross domestic output dropped 19%.

Fact: 'Riots and strikes by a population too hungry and desparate to fear bullets forced Pinochet to reverse course' (Greg Palast, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy)

Fact: 'To save the nation's pension system, Pinochet nationalized banks and industry on a scale unimagined by the socialist Allende. The general expropriated at will, offering little or no compensation.' (ibid)

Fact: Pinochet was forced to restore the minimum wage and create 500,000 jobs in the public sector to feed the people.

Fact: Good old Keynesian economics are what pulled the 'free market' of Chile out of the mess it had made, just like it's doing now for the rest of the world.

Rev. BlueJeans

Resorting to namecalling means nothing around here :rolleyes:

It boils down to this;

Selling off state infrastructure was tried with eircom, with the result that the telecoms network in this country is now in the hands of antipodean sharks who can't or won't afford to maintain it. Every time I hear Aunty Mary pontificating on Radio 1, I want to wring her wizened neck for it.

Do we really want to do the same to our electricity gas and rail networks? They belong to the people of this state, and should be kept in state hands.

View

RGS wrote: »

The internal air operators, all private operators, obtain a subsidy to provide an air link between the regional airports and Dublin.

Yes, I know. Hence, my point there is no reason why private companies can't supply services - just like public ones do - when they receive a subsidy. Ownership of a company shouldn't effect the need for subsidies or not.

View

Rev. BlueJeans wrote: »

Do we really want to do the same to our electricity gas and rail networks?

Personally, I care about the quality of service provided by companies such as those you mention. Those standards should be set and enforced by an independent Regulator.

Either a company can deliver on these services or not, the ownership of the company that deliver these services should not effect this.

Permabear

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AlekSmart

They generally provide good service for much less than their government-run competitor.

All very true and there are even some who work WITH ( :eek:) the Government-Run ( ) competitor.

http://www.mcgeehancoaches.com/dublin.html

Rev. BlueJeans

View wrote: »

Personally, I care about the quality of service provided by companies such as those you mention. Those standards should be set and enforced by an independent Regulator.

Either a company can deliver on these services or not, the ownership of the company that deliver these services should not effect this.

I agree.

Coach transport is somewhat different to rail, gas, electricity and telecoms though, in that the latter three involve a network of one sort or another.

These networks themselves should not fall into private hands, although a license to maintain and operate is already a reality in the case of electricity, for example.

Peanut

Ex-London mayor Ken Livingstone wrote a piece for the Guardian about the failure of rail privatisation in the UK. He has a number of good points clearly stated, I think, such as,

"...But the real issue is that it is inherently wasteful to run these services on privatised lines. The nature of the privatising companies is that a significant proportion of the profits of their activities have to be paid in dividends to shareholders rather than reinvested in the service. This is money wasted. A publicly-owned company would be obliged to reinvest any revenues back into the transport system.

Furthermore, privatisation is justified on the grounds that the private sector is driven, through the rigour of competition, to be more efficient and more responsive to passengers' needs. This is a fiction in the case of a natural monopoly like a railway. Apart from the brief period of competition among bidders for contracts, there is no day-to-day competition at all – no one is going to build a rival railway line and poach passengers from the private franchisee."

(link)