Why has the €20 Billion deficit not reduced ?.

kippy

skelliser wrote: »

There are now 3 distinct groups in Ireland now.

1) The ~300k job protected PS

2) The private sector

3) The 450k on the dole.

The battle lines are drawn.
Watch who is going to get attacked. So far its the poor unfortunates on the dole.

Your view of the world is overly simplistic.

skelliser

kippy wrote: »

Your view of the world is overly simplistic.

Well our deficit is pretty simple.
Expenditure has to be addressed. So far only a piecemeal attempt has taken place.
Taxing our way out of this is not going to work.

Nijmegen

We can argue round the edges for years on end (as we have been doing) boys and girls, but the fact is - the deficit isn't budging in any big way.

Taxing the hell out of us hasn't worked. If you strip out the tax increases, which you expect to deliver a net increase in tax take for example in income tax, the tax base has been going backwards. The government has been taxing more from less and barely getting ahead. On VAT it is going backwards, and they want to raise that in the coming years.

Meanwhile the state itself has managed the barest of reductions in its size, thanks to numerous things - Public sector realistically should be slashed, social welfare needs to be taken for a ride, and so forth. Instead government cuts have been the mainful pinpricks around the edges - cut non permanent SNA's, come up with reasons to close a few A&E's, etc.

Eventually economic reality will move the EU/IMF to tell us to cut deeper, and then we will continue with more and deeper austerity.

It's depressing.

Liam Byrne

skelliser wrote: »

There are now 3 distinct groups in Ireland now.

1) The ~300k job protected PS

2) The private sector

3) The 450k on the dole.

There's 4 or 5, because 1 & 2 could be split into A & B subsections

A) Those creaming it in on €100,000 plus per year
Those on almost-insulting wages being treated like crap (under threat of ending up in group 3) so that A can maintain their lifestyle and benefits and profits

It suited FF to pit Public Sector against Private Sector in the hope that people wouldn't realise that the main split was A vs B.

RichardAnd

I think it has come down a little, I can't be sure of that though. For an explanation of why the hole has not been plugged, let us not forget that this is Ireland where we excell at getting rid of money but utterly fail in creating it.

ILikeBananas

Great, another public v private sector thread-just what this forum needs!

Seriously can somebody make a containment thread for all of these as it's as pointless as people arguing about religion-both sides can say whatever they want but they won't change the minds of people on the other side.

Nijmegen

ILikeBananas wrote: »

Great, another public v private sector thread-just what this forum needs!

Seriously can somebody make a containment thread for all of these as it's as pointless as people arguing about religion-both sides can say whatever they want but they won't change the minds of people on the other side.

It's one element of government spending that is high impact, high profile, at a time when the government deficit has not markedly reduced compared to several years of austerity and tax increases for all.

kippy

Nijmegen wrote: »

It's one element of government spending that is high impact, high profile, at a time when the government deficit has not markedly reduced compared to several years of austerity and tax increases for all.

I agree with your earlier comments and indeed this one. The cuts have been too slow, too little and with way too much uncertainty.
Realisticilly the public pay and pensions bill needs to drop below or around 10 billion but more importantly for that a higher quality of service is required, with less waste and more efficiency.

Riskymove

it was mentioned earlier and is being overlooked that the reason the deficit has not seemingly reduced is mainly down to the EU insisting that the billions put into the bank this year are counted in the expenditure column. The previous Government kept this money off the books

this was dicsussed at the time and the idea that people would forget about this and thus next year when the deficit apparantly magically reduces by a significant amount the Government would take the credit for what is essentially accounting, was predicted


on the issue of increments, this has been done again and again

the cuts in the pay and pensions bill far outway what increments cost

the increment figure of €250m is a gross one and so at least half is recouped through tax

an increment would usually result in an extra €10 or €20 in a pay check

the concept of increments is a means of providing more pay for more experience as oppossed to 300,000 seeking their own wage rise individually with employers, its a far easier process this way

finally, the main reason for not stopping increments is that in the current climate, with little recruitment or promotion, increments will get fewer and fewer. Additionally, stopping increments would result in a long-term pay gao between people doing the same jobs and eventually (whenever we recover) probably result in a serious back payment amount - it is more efficient to just let them continue

careca11

we can argue all we like , but at the end of the day , the people on the street know what needs to be done , but the politicans simply don't have the Balls to do it (The gravy train rolls along as usual)

maccored

fliball123 wrote: »

So say your a grade 5 and your salary is set between 60 and 70k..

Im on grade 5 and my salary is nowhere near 60-70k - nowhere near it at all. Plus our pay is froze - no increments. well my salary certainly hasnt increased over the past few years anyway. its decreased.

murphaph

Riskymove wrote: »

the concept of increments is a means of providing more pay for more experience as oppossed to 300,000 seeking their own wage rise individually with employers, its a far easier process this way

My last employer had more staff than this, spread across the entire world, yet managed to pay all its people based on a combination of their indivdual performance and the performance of the company as a whole.

It's a bogus argument you're making that allows people to coast along while others do the work.

bamboozle

Godge wrote: »

Sorry but the pension levy is 7%, the pension contribution is 6.5%, a total of 13.5% being paid by public servants towards their pensions. The pension contribution of 6.5% was always there, the pension levy was introduced in 2009 because a pay cut was not politically possible at the time. By January 2010, the pay cut was politically possible and was also introduced.

And, unlike your contribution, there is no guarantee that the money is going into a fund to pay for their pensions.

As for your pay cut of 25%, you are in a small minority of employees in the private sector that have seen such cuts. Employees in the phramaceutical, IT and banking sectors have largely been protected from the pay cuts and in a lot of cases have been getting pay increases (quietly though). So as an average, the combined pay cut/pension levy hit of around 14% that public servants have taken is probably at least in line if not more than the hit the average private sector employee has taken.[/QUOTE]

you seem to be forgetting the 350k or so additional people who joined the live registrar in the last 3 years, not to mention the thousands who have been forced to emigrate in search of work.

Riskymove

murphaph wrote: »

My last employer had more staff than this, spread across the entire world, yet managed to pay all its people based on a combination of their indivdual performance and the performance of the company as a whole.

so?

I didn't say it was impossible, simply an alternative which better suits the PS

I'd guess the firm had something easier to judge performance on perhaps? tangible ouptuts etc?

most of the PS organisations themselves cant really be based on revenue or income either, which makes that element more difficult too

It's a bogus argument you're making that allows people to coast along while others do the work.

I do not believe its bogus, as above, simply a different method

right now, the taxpayer can see what PS workers are paid, across the board. if we had individualisation, it would be very different

people who coast along should not get an increment, its that simple

doc_17

The deficit isn't shrinking because of two reasons...

The extra money being dumped (literally) into Anglo and Nationwide is cancelling out the cuts.

And maybe, just maybe.....Austerity doesn't work

Eliminate waste yes...but sweeping cuts across the board with no thought put in don't work either.

As someone else said...employment is best way out of the mess.

RichardAnd

Riskymove wrote: »

people who coast along should not get an increment, its that simple

It might be a simple idea but it's not a simple action. Weeding out wasters from the hundreds of thousands of public servants would be a monumental task and would probably cost more than the cost of giving them their increments.

sollar

RichardAnd wrote: »

It might be a simple idea but it's not a simple action. Weeding out wasters from the hundreds of thousands of public servants would be a monumental task and would probably cost more than the cost of giving them their increments.

Yes and many of the out and out dossers are at the top of their incremental scale already.

murphaph

Riskymove wrote: »

so?

I didn't say it was impossible, simply an alternative which better suits the PS

I'd guess the firm had something easier to judge performance on perhaps? tangible ouptuts etc?

most of the PS organisations themselves cant really be based on revenue or income either, which makes that element more difficult too



I do not believe its bogus, as above, simply a different method

right now, the taxpayer can see what PS workers are paid, across the board. if we had individualisation, it would be very different

people who coast along should not get an increment, its that simple

The firm was IBM. Not everyone by any stretch would be responsible for output etc. (I'm thinking HR or IT admin people etc.) but the company finds ways to grade them.

The PS is not designed to generate revenue but you can still measure performance based on how much it costs to run year on year!

Just sitting back and paying all PS workers on the same grade the same pay is asking for trouble.

Degsy

fliball123 wrote: »

Say there are 300k people in the ps on say an average of 50k

Well in my department of 25 people there are 4 on 50k and the rest on much less.
The top of the scale for most people in the grade is circa 30k and thats with more than 10 years in the job...you think thats competitive pay do you?

Since the cuts the starting rate is now 25k per anum and we cant take people on at that rate because of the embargo..so basically,you're talking out of your hole.

Welease

RichardAnd wrote: »

It might be a simple idea but it's not a simple action. Weeding out wasters from the hundreds of thousands of public servants would be a monumental task and would probably cost more than the cost of giving them their increments.

Rubbish...

If a manager doesn't know which of their staff falls below the required standard, then they should be the first to go..
The vast majority of PS managers would be able to tell exactly which of their staff were worthy of payrises, and which were not..

At present, they are not given the tools or support to perform such a task..

ZYX

sollar wrote: »

So did the pension levy not save money on the deficit considering if it wasn't implemented the pensions were going to be paid out anyway?




Perhaps you can now provide the figures on money saved due to non replacement of staff in the PS. Or do you only gather one sided data??

http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/current/earnlabcosts.pdf

According to CSO in last 2 years public sector employment has fallen just under 1%. Average public sector pay has fallen about 5% (hourly earnings). Not really major stuff.

I know PS workers will criticise these figures but if you are can you give alternatives rather than just say "you are wrong".

murphaph

Degsy wrote: »

Well in my department of 25 people there are 4 on 50k and the rest on much less.
The top of the scale for most people in the grade is circa 30k and thats with more than 10 years in the job...you think thats competitive pay do you?

It's gas. You give us a figure of 30k without mentioning what it is you do for this (not insignificant) sum and then expect us all to agree with you that it's not a good salary. Unreal. 30k for some jobs (especially 35-38 hour a week jobs ) would be a very sweet deal.

OMD

Degsy wrote: »

Well in my department of 25 people there are 4 on 50k and the rest on much less.
The top of the scale for most people in the grade is circa 30k and thats with more than 10 years in the job...you think thats competitive pay do you?

Since the cuts the starting rate is now 25k per anum and we cant take people on at that rate because of the embargo..so basically,you're talking out of your hole.

Total bollocks. The lowest clerical officer job in the Civil Service has a top rate of pay of about €35,000. That is for those unable to get promoted or move jobs.

Jarren

http://www.publicjobs.ie/publicjobs/en/civilservice/salary-scaling.do

OMD

jarecki1976 wrote: »

http://www.publicjobs.ie/publicjobs/en/civilservice/salary-scaling.do

So based on this he must be talking about "Executive officer standard scale" which has a starting salary of about €25,000 as he maintains. That has a top level of €43,000.

RichardAnd

I always find it amazing that when speaking of public service salary scales, people always seem to assume that all civil servants are at the top of such scales...

Actually, that doesn't really amaze me at all.

ardmacha

I know PS workers will criticise these figures

Any reference to pay which does not include the pension levy is misleading and serious discussion is impossible in this forum as people continually and maliciously do this, despite the issue being pointed out on numerous occasions.

kippy

ardmacha wrote: »

Any reference to pay which does not include the pension levy is misleading and serious discussion is impossible in this forum as people continually and maliciously do this, despite the issue being pointed out on numerous occasions.

Gross figures are what counts - I've never seen salary figures based on net to be honest.

OMD

RichardAnd wrote: »

I always find it amazing that when speaking of public service salary scales, people always seem to assume that all civil servants are at the top of such scales...

Actually, that doesn't really amaze me at all.

Who is assuming that?
Degsy said that for his job the starting salary was 25K and the top was 30k. I replied that was bollocks and the figures provided proove that. By the way if you are making the point about position on pay scales all we know is basically no one is on the first 3 rungs of the pay scale

ZYX

ardmacha wrote: »

Any reference to pay which does not include the pension levy is misleading and serious discussion is impossible in this forum as people continually and maliciously do this, despite the issue being pointed out on numerous occasions.

As I said please provide figures rather than just imply I am wrong.