So how did we get in this mess anyway?

aurelius79

I was surfing around the web looking for information on who pays the RSA and I found this little gem.

Report of the Special Group on Public Service
Numbers and Expenditure Programmes

http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/pressreleases/2009/bl100vol1.pdf

Apparently, the Minister for Finance hired yet another financial advisory group (well paid no doubt) to instruct him on the proper technique for digging oneself out of a hole. It seems the Minister decided this special group was wrong and ignored a lot of what they recommended.

One such recommendation was to reduce total public service jobs by 17,358 and reduce spending by over 5 billion (page 5). That sounds pretty brutal to me. That might be why the Minister decided to not sack anyone (or comparatively few) and actually increase public spending for 2010.

http://www.budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2010/Documents/whitepaperfin2010.pdf

There's a lot of interesting reading in this PDF, such as the projected increases in Central Fund current expenditure. 3.9 billion (2.5% of GDP) in 2008 up to 11.9 billion (6.9% GDP) in 2013.

Another fun fact is the increase in middle to high management in public service in the past ten years (page 12).

"While the individual increases correspond in many cases to increased service delivery (most notably in the Health and Education sectors), the Special Group also notes some evidence of a disproportionate increase in the ratio of senior-level grades where, for example, the numbers at
middle to higher management levels in the civil service grew by some 82% in the period 1997 to 2009 at a time when civil service numbers as a whole increased by 27%."

bobbyjoe

Hey we don't want heads on a plate or to be blaming powerful people. Much easier to blame the PS, unemployed or carers.

I'm drunk ignore what I said. It could be really relevant or totally not. Can't tell.

Riskymove

aurelius79 wrote: »

I was surfing around the web looking for information on who pays the RSA and I found this little gem.

have you been living in cave this last year?

aurelius79

Riskymove wrote: »

have you been living in cave this last year?

Leitrim, close enough.

Anyway, my main point I guess was that the Minister for Finance hired these people at considerable cost to the tax payer to offer recommendations on how to solve the budget crisis. After they assessed all government spending, they offered solutions which the minister largely ignored, so why were they hired in the first place?

Riskymove

aurelius79 wrote: »

Leitrim, close enough.

Anyway, my main point I guess was that the Minister for Finance hired these people at considerable cost to the tax payer to offer recommendations on how to solve the budget crisis. After they assessed all government spending, they offered solutions which the minister largely ignored, so why were they hired in the first place?

well the report has been one of the most discussed items on these threads this year (until budget, cuts etc)

Colm mcCarthy is asked endlessly it seems about why his report was ignored.....he maintains that a lot of what they recommended has been taken on board and more will be as time goes on.

as for why they were hired...they did what they were hired to do...come up with options..it was up to Government then to decide upon what to do

I dont believe in blindly agreeing to everything consultants come up with..."experts" or not

Riskymove

aurelius79 wrote: »

One such recommendation was to reduce total public service jobs by 17,358 and reduce spending by over 5 billion (page 5). That sounds pretty brutal to me. That might be why the Minister decided to not sack anyone (or comparatively few) and actually increase public spending for 2010.

one other thing, which was discussed a lot at the time and was a general mis-understanding.....there was no intention of "sacking people".....the reductions were to be by way of "natural wastage" and not hiring people (as is going on at present)


EDIT: what do you mean by "increasing public spending for 2010"?

aurelius79

Riskymove wrote: »

one other thing, which was discussed a lot at the time and was a general mis-understanding.....there was no intention of "sacking people".....the reductions were to be by way of "natural wastage" and not hiring people (as is going on at present)


EDIT: what do you mean by "increasing public spending for 2010"?

Ah, I compiled the information from the budget whitepaper...

http://www.budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2010/Documents/whitepaperfin2010.pdf

...and it turns out the government has actually increased spending in most departments when compared to 2009.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055766076

Edit: The additional 11 million for the Office of the Minister for Finance and the 14.2 million for the Central Statistics Office is particularly interesting.

The extra 14 mil for the CSO could have negated the 14 million reduction made to the Dept. of Education and Science.

Riskymove

aurelius79 wrote: »

Edit: The additional 11 million for the Office of the Minister for Finance and the 14.2 million for the Central Statistics Office is particularly interesting.

The extra 14 mil for the CSO could have negated the 14 million reduction made to the Dept. of Education and Science.

indeed

The next full Census is early 2011 so the money may be going towards pre-planning!!

gerry28

Sometimes it takes reading something from outside the country to remind you what has really happened.
I took this from the BBC website summarising irelands predicament:

'Harsh cuts
The government recently unveiled sharp cuts in spending to rebalance the country's finances.
The Irish Republic was once one of the fastest-growing in Europe, but it is now among the most heavily indebted in the 16-member eurozone, with a deficit amounting to 12% of GDP.
Its previously-booming property market left it highly vulnerable in the downturn. Its economic woes include a slump in house prices, high unemployment and an enormously expensive banking bail-out.'

Lenihan refuses to be as clear in his appraisal of the banking sector and its costs than he seems to be in relation to the costs of social welfare and the public sector. The public has largely sidelined it also in favour of the PS/Private argument.

RedPlanet

gerry28 wrote: »

Lenihan refuses to be as clear in his appraisal of the banking sector and its costs than he seems to be in relation to the costs of social welfare and the public sector. The public has largely sidelined it also in favour of the PS/Private argument.

Yeah it's because NAMA is supposed to be a net earner in time, whereas the PS pay bill is not and will never be.

Riskymove

RedPlanet wrote: »

Yeah it's because NAMA is supposed to be a net earner in time, whereas the PS pay bill is not and will never be.

on one hand yes


...on another.....like most wages, a significant proportion will end up back with the State one way or the other

RedPlanet

Riskymove wrote: »

on one hand yes


...on another.....like most wages, a significant proportion will end up back with the State one way or the other

Sorry yeah, i meant to refer to Recapitalisation is meant to be an earner.
NAMA is property speculation and a Bank/Developer bailout.

gerry28

RedPlanet wrote: »

Yeah it's because NAMA is supposed to be a net earner in time, whereas the PS pay bill is not and will never be.

Possibly, but your average worker will not see much of the gains of it, but we are sure as hell being asked to pay for the downside of it.

macraignil

Are bankers and developers an easy target to blame for our national debt? To my view the failure of the government to provide a real housing policy for lower paid workers and increasingly restrictive planning regulations caused a huge shortage of supply. Developers may not have intended to bankrupt the country by providing homes and business premises at the over-inflated market prices. Bankers may have been thinking more of their end of year bonus, when companies wanted loans for underground car parks next to a rivers, etc.

"The affordable housing scheme" should have underpinned the housing market by simply forcing developers to provide some of the homes in their development at cost. The affordable houses and apartments that were built near to my parent's house were to be sold at 230,000euro and now are left locked and unused.

A friend got an affordable apartment for 280,000euro and one of the same block was advertised for sale recently for 155,000euro. I have seen a builder's book of estimates on building an estate of quality homes nearby and the different homes were costing just over 100,000euro to build. I have read many developers openly paid the local authority to avoid having affordable housing in their development and thus avoided buyers seeing the real profit margin being added to their home (if selling at cost was ever the aim of the affordable housing scheme).

Thousands have bought homes at prices far above what they cost to build. Even those, who only needed to prove that their wages were not too high, to qualify for buying the lower spec units in a development, were often exploited by the scheme because builders were still able to make a profit on the affordable units.

Who made our housing regulations that led to this? I would like to blame politicians. Their incompetence and apathy towards those not enjoying ministerial type wages would make them easy targets. Let's not forget the non elected civil servants who have not spoken out about corruption in case their over inflated salerys might be affected. Let's not forget the FF voter who said its OK to have a finance minister with no bank account keeping himself going with money he won on betting on a horse.