Croke Park Agreement beyond 2014

kippy

Japer wrote: »

but much more than 300,000 public servants and public service pensioners have beneffitted from the doubling of the public service wage + pensions bill in the space of ten years. The top 300 people in the public sector / on public sector pensions are extraordinarilty well rewarded for the mess they made....

And private sector (through tax breaks) and the enemployed havent benefited?

EVERYONE in the country benefited from the "Celtic Tiger" directly or indirectly and EVERYONE in the country is sadly part of the readjustment.


I agree again with the final comment.

kippy

barneystinson wrote: »

So this old chestnut rolls out again.

How far overpaid are these groups? Is this your gut feeling, or have you got a source you're not sharing?

And why do you believe that the lower end of PS staff, which makes up the majority in both numbers and payroll cost, are not overpaid? Is this your gut feeling, or have you got a source you're not sharing?

In fairness, I'd agree with Japer here.
There are far too many people at those levels and they earn far too much money, with no accountability, no pressures and no real roles for a lot of them. The money could be spent far better elsewhere in the public service.

beeno67

kippy wrote: »

I am fully aware how pensions work (and I believe there is considerable area for improvement when it comes to pensions (Public, Private and OAP/COAP) in this country.


You'd swear public sector workers paid nothing towards their pension and their employer shouldn't pay anything either.
Public sector wages haven't risen by 3% a year for the last 3 years either btw.

over the last 20 years public sector pay has risen by a multiple of inflation. Since the founding of this state public sector pay has risen by a multiple of inflation. To pick the one 3 year period where this has not happened is a bit off.
If you are a public servant, say a teacher, you retire on a salary of about 60k. This means on retirement you get a pension of 30k a year and a lump sum of 90k. Now part of the pension (in the future) is made up of old age pension. Still about 20k a year comes from pension fund. To get this kind of pension in private sector you would need a fund of about 700,000. Now think, how much has that teacher paid into the fund and how much would that have needed to grow to reach 700.000 after costs

kippy wrote: »

And my point, pension funds generally rise in value over the longer term holds.

your pension fund may rise prior to retirement. Thereafter your pension doesn't rise, ie the amount you get every week/month unless you pay for it by taking a lower pension as the link I provided shows

kippy

beeno67 wrote: »

over the last 20 years public sector pay has risen by a multiple of inflation. Since the founding of this state public sector pay has risen by a multiple of inflation. To pick the one 3 year period where this has not happened is a bit off.
If you are a public servant, say a teacher, you retire on a salary of about 60k. This means on retirement you get a pension of 30k a year and a lump sum of 90k. Now part of the pension (in the future) is made up of old age pension. Still about 20k a year comes from pension fund. To get this kind of pension in private sector you would need a fund of about 700,000. Now think, how much has that teacher paid into the fund and how much would that have needed to grow to reach 700.000 after costs


your pension fund may rise prior to retirement. Thereafter your pension doesn't rise, ie the amount you get every week/month unless you pay for it by taking a lower pension as the link I provided shows

I'll have to dig out some figures from a previous post to give you some hard numbers.
For public servants pre 2012 there is definitely a shortfall in funding arrangements - I'll give you that (perhaps not as much as you might believe), that is mainly due to how the final pension is worked out, this has changed significantly for new entrants.
As I said, I do believe some change is required for existing PS, such as a tax on the lump sum at the very least.


So basically it's not okay for a public servant to receive a pension after working 40 years and indeed paying for a pension, but someone who hasnt worked a day in their life will get upwards of 200 euro a week?

Godge

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

And you keep pretending that there will be little or no savings. We need to cut over 10 billion in the next three budgets. All of this cannot come from tax Increases or from cuts.

A property tax averaging 750/house will rise about 1.5 billion. Maybe another 500 million from Water charges. Will we manage another 2Billion from the welfare budget. This gives 4 Billion. Tax Increases Vat, cigarette's Motor tax, car fuel are not going to raise much more unless we get an upturn in the economy. In 2008 when austerity started it was presumed that we would be back to growth of around 3% now. The reality I think that for the next three years projected growth is expected to be around 1%/year . As far as I can see the only excise duty that may raise money is a substantial duty on supermarket sold drink with the prices at an all time low it may be possible to put up to 1 euro/bottle of wine and 30 cent/can of lager how much will it raise I do not know.

At present Income tax raises around 15 billion/year a 10% raise will raise 1.5 billion. Can Health and Education deliver another billion with out pay cuts. This would get us to around 7 Billion We will be short 3 billion. As growth of 1%/year will not create jobs I think that we will net to find a couple billion from PS pay as you are all pointing out you need to cut 2 to get 1, this is if there are not significent numbers exiting the PS. Maybe if there was substantial pay cut at the top of the PS some of these who people think are able to get better paid in the private sector will leave, hey presto there is is 60-70% return on pay cuts over 2 billion from 3 billion in cuts. All these public relation guru's HR guru's etc will be snapped up by the private sector I will have to wake up soon I am dreaming

Absolute rubbish, we do not need to find 10 billion over the next three budgets.

http://www.finance.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=7355

Look at the figures, we have to get our deficit down to 3%. That means we need to cut €8 bn, that is, if you assume that nominal GDP is flat over the next three years, otherwise it is much less. Given that no economist in the country is assuming no change in nominal GDP, there is something wrong with your figures. Remember the figure that matters for debt/GDP ratios is nominal GDP which increases by inflation plus growth every year. Ironically, if the EU had inflation of 5% per year for the next 5 years, there would not be a problem.

The reality is we need to find €3.1 bn in the next budget. That is eminently achievable without touching public service pay rates. The following two budgets will probably only need to find €1.5 bn each and if the economy does recover, that will be achievable as well as the revenue buoyancy delivers it.

Some of your figures beggar belief. €22 bn has been raised in tax by the end of August this year, that is €33 bn in a full year, your 10% increase in taxes raises €3.3 bn, more than is required for next year's budget.

As for public sector people leaving, the good ones, like myself have already left as the money in the right part of the private sector is better.

beeno67

kippy wrote: »

I'll have to dig out some figures from a previous post to give you some hard numbers.
For public servants pre 2012 there is definitely a shortfall in funding arrangements - I'll give you that (perhaps not as much as you might believe), that is mainly due to how the final pension is worked out, this has changed significantly for new entrants.
As I said, I do believe some change is required for existing PS, such as a tax on the lump sum at the very least.

Get the figures. I think you will be astounded at the shortfall

kippy wrote: »

So basically it's not okay for a public servant to receive a pension after working 40 years and indeed paying for a pension, but someone who hasnt worked a day in their life will get upwards of 200 euro a week?

I think you are arguing with someone else here. My point was simply to kceire about how good public sector pensions are

kippy

beeno67 wrote: »

Get the figures. I think you will be astounded at the shortfall

I think you are arguing with someone else here. My point was simply to kceire about how good public sector pensions are

Wow it's huge! I can't believe it. I've struck gold! (Sarcasm)
Nothing is going to change in the next 30 years to effect that.

woodoo

kippy wrote: »

So basically it's not okay for a public servant to receive a pension after working 40 years and indeed paying for a pension, but someone who hasnt worked a day in their life will get upwards of 200 euro a week?

Yeah €218 per week the other perks, like cheap electrics, TV silence, Phone etc. Medical Card.

I wouldn't imagine the likes of a Care Attendant working for the HSE would get much more than that. Maybe €260 or so pension. But they would have 3 separate pension contributions and PRSI +USC to pay.

Godge

barneystinson wrote: »

I think they need to set up a new benchmarking process, overhaul entire grade structures in some areas, redefine roles so as to replace what in the current system are higher managers (PO's on 80-100k) with middle managers (AP's on 65-80k), and consider increasing the number of grades in some departments.

Comparing HMRC in UK with Revenue in Ireland for example, there are 8 grades in HMRC which are equivalent to 4/5 grades in Revenue up to middle management (AP) level here (they obviously have a different structure so it's hard to do a head to head comparison). The middle managers' salaries seem pretty equivalent between the two, but the 2 lowest paid HMRC grades start and end substantially below the CO scale over here. This suggests to me that in that specific case it's the lower paid civil servants here who are being overpaid...

I also noted that HMRC negotiate their own salary scales with their employees' unions, rather than the rates being uniform rates across the entire Civil Service - could there be a benefit to making each Dept operate a standalone structure here, or some Departments? It might reduce the power of the Unions if they had to negotiate with several Departments separately, and that could only be a good thing..! (Following the UK might not be such a great idea though, as HMRC seem to be much criticised, while our Revenue are generally regarded as about the best of our Govt departments.)

I think a cut of 3% across the board, maybe rising to 5% on the income in excess of 50k would be reasonable about now. Based on the distribution of the various grades where I work, my rule of thumb calculations suggest this would be a reduction in the gross pay of about 3.2%, and a reduction in net pay of about 2%. (The proportionate saving would be higher in areas like health and semi-states where wages are higher.) Cut by much more than that and it's arguable you might not get any net benefit to the economy, through reduced spending by the affected families, and an increase in mortgage defaults.

What I don't support is freezing of increments - performance management systems need to be properly implemented and run so that the bottom 10-15% of staff aren't getting an increment, so that the system can actually have some credibility and not be seen as a pay-rise just for turning up - but freezing increments without touching the pay of people who are already at the top of their scales would have a very demotivating effect on people recently recruited / promoted, who are actually most likely to be the best performing workers.

Now that is probably the best argument for a pay cut I have read.

Not like the nonsensical rantings of the keyboard warriors. A well-thought out proposal that takes into account likely effects on the public servants themselves (you know, they are your neighbours, friends and family).

If the overall finances demand it, it is the kind of proposal that might work without causing industrial disruption, however, I don't think it is needed.

beeno67

kippy wrote: »

Wow it's huge! I can't believe it. I've struck gold! (Sarcasm)
Nothing is going to change in the next 30 years to effect that.

The shortfall is huge. Of the teacher's 40 years salary, the entire salary for the first 25 years would not equal the pension fund required.

kippy

beeno67 wrote: »

The shortfall is huge. Of the teacher's 40 years salary, the entire salary for the first 25 years would not equal the pension fund required.

And say the teacher died within 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 years of retirement?
While the potential pension pot may be huge, you need to live in order to claim it.

beeno67

kippy wrote: »

And say the teacher died within 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 years of retirement?
While the potential pension pot may be huge, you need to live in order to claim it.

Well assuming he/she was married or had children they would have received the pension so living is not essential. Actually they would have received it even before the teacher would have reached retirement age

kippy

beeno67 wrote: »

Well assuming he/she was married or had children they would have received the pension so living is not essential

This is not true in the majority of cases.
They will not receive YOUR pension.

beeno67

kippy wrote: »

This is not true in the majority of cases.
They will not receive YOUR pension.

Yes they will. Not the entire amount obviously. If you are going to come back with some comment that it's not called pension, although I'm pretty sure it is, then don't bother. They will receive a payment, for the rest of their lives (not the children obviously) based on the amount of years the PS worker has worked

kippy

beeno67 wrote: »

Yes they will. Not the entire amount obviously. If you are going to come back with some comment that it's not called pension, although I'm pretty sure it is, then don't bother. They will receive a payment, for the rest of their lives (not the children obviously) based on the amount of years the PS worker has worked

They get about half.
http://www.cspensions.gov.ie/faq2.pdf

Farmer Pudsey

Godge wrote: »

Absolute rubbish, we do not need to find 10 billion over the next three budgets.

http://www.finance.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=7355

Look at the figures, we have to get our deficit down to 3%. That means we need to cut €8 bn, that is, if you assume that nominal GDP is flat over the next three years, otherwise it is much less. Given that no economist in the country is assuming no change in nominal GDP, there is something wrong with your figures. Remember the figure that matters for debt/GDP ratios is nominal GDP which increases by inflation plus growth every year. Ironically, if the EU had inflation of 5% per year for the next 5 years, there would not be a problem.

The reality is we need to find €3.1 bn in the next budget. That is eminently achievable without touching public service pay rates. The following two budgets will probably only need to find €1.5 bn each and if the economy does recover, that will be achievable as well as the revenue buoyancy delivers it.

Some of your figures beggar belief. €22 bn has been raised in tax by the end of August this year, that is €33 bn in a full year, your 10% increase in taxes raises €3.3 bn, more than is required for next year's budget.

As for public sector people leaving, the good ones, like myself have already left as the money in the right part of the private sector is better.

We had to find 8 Billion on a growth rate of 3% not going to happen even if it did we should over correct. If you have a lon you shoud always try to over correct.

Why so because you never know what is coming down the line if we had not taken the easy options in 2008 we would not be in the sh##e we are in now.

But we will take the easy option again because we cannot touch pension of some PS that are getting 50K + a year. We cannot touch Welfare we cannot touch PS pay that is 40% above private sector pay. No we will protect people in the PS that are in there 50's instead we will expect young couple in there 30's in the private sector to support there two holidays a year and there holiday home in the south of Spain. They need the money to pay for that.

I was speaking about income tax being at 15 billion projected this year all taxes is what you are looking at . I believe there will be little room to increase vat and excise in the next budget except on alcohol in supermarkets. £33 Billion is the figure for all taxes Stamp, excise Customs Vat and Coporation tax which I cannot see been changed

Villa05

Here's a story displaying the struggle of a public servant to pay the bills (Don't choke on you cornflakes)

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/life-is-a-struggle-on-232000-says-university-president-3223690.html

Count Dooku

Godge wrote: »

Absolute rubbish, we do not need to find 10 billion over the next three budgets.

Only if Ireland will manage return back to markets, otherwise troika will set new targets

Godge wrote: »

Look at the figures, we have to get our deficit down to 3%. That means we need to cut €8 bn, that is, if you assume that nominal GDP is flat over the next three years, otherwise it is much less. Given that no economist in the country is assuming no change in nominal GDP, there is something wrong with your figures.

I wouldn't trust Irish economists who cannot see property bubble for decade. GNP is falling and it is more critical for tax take than GDP

Godge wrote: »

Remember the figure that matters for debt/GDP ratios is nominal GDP which increases by inflation plus growth every year. Ironically, if the EU had inflation of 5% per year for the next 5 years, there would not be a problem.

Forget about inflation, ECB doesn't want it

Godge wrote: »

Some of your figures beggar belief. €22 bn has been raised in tax by the end of August this year, that is €33 bn in a full year, your 10% increase in taxes raises €3.3 bn, more than is required for next year's budget.

Even if you increase every single tax by 10%, it wont give you 10% increase in tax take and more lightly you will get decrease instead of increase

coolshannagh28

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Godge wrote: »

Absolute rubbish, we do not need to find 10 billion over the next three budgets.

http://www.finance.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=7355

Look at the figures, we have to get our deficit down to 3%. That means we need to cut €8 bn, that is, if you assume that nominal GDP is flat over the next three years, otherwise it is much less. Given that no economist in the country is assuming no change in nominal GDP, there is something wrong with your figures. Remember the figure that matters for debt/GDP ratios is nominal GDP which increases by inflation plus growth every year. Ironically, if the EU had inflation of 5% per year for the next 5 years, there would not be a problem.

The reality is we need to find €3.1 bn in the next budget. That is eminently achievable without touching public service pay rates. The following two budgets will probably only need to find €1.5 bn each and if the economy does recover, that will be achievable as well as the revenue buoyancy delivers it.

Some of your figures beggar belief. €22 bn has been raised in tax by the end of August this year, that is €33 bn in a full year, your 10% increase in taxes raises €3.3 bn, more than is required for next year's budget.

As for public sector people leaving, the good ones, like myself have already left as the money in the right part of the private sector is better.

We had to find 8 Billion on a growth rate of 3% not going to happen even if it did we should over correct. If you have a lon you shoud always try to over correct.

Why so because you never know what is coming down the line if we had not taken the easy options in 2008 we would not be in the sh##e we are in now.

But we will take the easy option again because we cannot touch pension of some PS that are getting 50K + a year. We cannot touch Welfare we cannot touch PS pay that is 40% above private sector pay. No we will protect people in the PS that are in there 50's instead we will expect young couple in there 30's in the private sector to support there two holidays a year and there holiday home in the south of Spain. They need the money to pay for that.

You are bang on the money here ,when are we going to do something about that selfish generation which has robbed us blind and continues to do so

Brussels Sprout

Just a week after James Reilly called for the CPA's renegotiation another senior cabinet member (and LABOUR party member) has repeated this call.

So now we have a labour party minister saying this and a FG minister saying that CPA is delivering (Varadkar last week). What's next, the Socialist part calling for a single flat tax rate and SF looking for us to join the Commonwealth!

link

ncdadam

Listening this morning on radio 1 about the 'social solidarity' idea that the CPA entails.
I don't hear too much social solidarity with people recruited post 2009 from people recruited pre 2009.
What we have, we hold, eh?
F**k anyone who joined after 2009.

barneystinson

ncdadam wrote: »

Listening this morning on radio 1 about the 'social solidarity' idea that the CPA entails.
I don't hear too much social solidarity with people recruited post 2009 from people recruited pre 2009.
What we have, we hold, eh?
F**k anyone who joined after 2009.

What's the difference pre- and post-2009?

doc_17

The poster probably means 2011 pay cut for new entrants?

ncdadam

doc_17 wrote: »

The poster probably means 2011 pay cut for new entrants?

The CPA was set up in 2009.
Were the pay cuts for new entrants not part of it?

Gumbo

ncdadam wrote: »

Listening this morning on radio 1 about the 'social solidarity' idea that the CPA entails.
I don't hear too much social solidarity with people recruited post 2009 from people recruited pre 2009.
What we have, we hold, eh?
F**k anyone who joined after 2009.

I joined after 2009. I have no ill feelings towards the people there before me

barneystinson

kceire wrote: »

I joined after 2009. I have no ill feelings towards the people there before me

I joined just before the scales for new entrants were reduced.

I can see both sides of the argument TBH:

On the one hand new entrants are offered a particular contract; individually they either accept it or they don't. So changing the terms of contracts that haven't yet been offered / accepted is a very different thing to altering the terms of pre-existing ones.

On the other hand there's clearly an inherent unfairnes in having a two-tiered system, where people doing exactly the same jobs are being paid on different payscales (however the same holds true of freezing increments) - arguably it would be fairer if they had said we're reducing the scale for new entrants with immediate effect, and we're reducing existing scales over a few years til they are at the same level. Personally I wouldn't object to that, if it could be objectively shown to be necessary, but I can understand why others in the PS might not agree!

murphaph

Quinn's comments are interesting. I've long thought he was more pragmatic than the average Labour head.

It's true though: it is ridiculous to expect any minister to be able to tackle spending in any meaningful way when he can only touch 20% of the budget for his department.

The consensus way would be best but I don't believe the unions in Ireland are mature enough to take their role at the social partnership table seriously. They will push for the short term interests of their members, completely forgetting that a collapse of the economy is in nobody's interests.

I also have no faith in this government to deal effectively. It is clearly divided on the CPA, which is no position for a government to take.

The average pay differential between public and private sectors in Ireland, being as it is (at least) 3.5 times greater than the same differential in the UK means that public sector workers need to be adjusted first, to bring that percentage differential into line with the UK at least (to fairen things up a bit) before increasing taxes on the general populous (though if they did both in parallel I'd be ok with that too if it worked).

This pay differential is the most crucial figure to look at IMO as it is pay rate and exchange rate independent. It focuses solely on the rate at which public servants are paid above private sector employees and nobody has been able to offer to real answer as to why there should be such a difference in percentage pay between the UK and Ireland. There simply is no good reason for the difference other than the fact that public servants in Ireland are still overpaid (on average, some will be underpaid compared to the private sector, but they are in a minority and more likely to be in specialist roles).

deise blue

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

Just a week after James Reilly called for the CPA's renegotiation another senior cabinet member (and LABOUR party member) has repeated this call.

So now we have a labour party minister saying this and a FG minister saying that CPA is delivering (Varadkar last week). What's next, the Socialist part calling for a single flat tax rate and SF looking for us to join the Commonwealth!

link

Having read the article it appears to me that Mr. Quinn refers only to the putative benefits of negotiating a successor to the current CPA as soon as possible.

I certainly cannot see any reference to renegotiating the current agreement , he does hope for an overlap between agreements 1 & 2 but appears very doubtful that the Unions will even consider this.

barneystinson

murphaph wrote: »

Quinn's comments are interesting. I've long thought he was more pragmatic than the average Labour head.

It's true though: it is ridiculous to expect any minister to be able to tackle spending in any meaningful way when he can only touch 20% of the budget for his department.

The consensus way would be best but I don't believe the unions in Ireland are mature enough to take their role at the social partnership table seriously. They will push for the short term interests of their members, completely forgetting that a collapse of the economy is in nobody's interests.

I agree.

murphaph wrote: »

The average pay differential between public and private sectors in Ireland, being as it is (at least) 3.5 times greater than the same differential in the UK means that public sector workers need to be adjusted first, to bring that percentage differential into line with the UK at least (to fairen things up a bit) before increasing taxes on the general populous (though if they did both in parallel I'd be ok with that too if it worked).

This pay differential is the most crucial figure to look at IMO as it is pay rate and exchange rate independent. It focuses solely on the rate at which public servants are paid above private sector employees and nobody has been able to offer to real answer as to why there should be such a difference in percentage pay between the UK and Ireland. There simply is no good reason for the difference other than the fact that public servants in Ireland are still overpaid (on average, some will be underpaid compared to the private sector, but they are in a minority and more likely to be in specialist roles).

That disparity in the pay differential is interesting; what's the source on it? (you probably linked it earlier but this thread is a monster!).

My first reaction would be to say you can't just do a straight comparison between the two without controlling for differences in the structures of the two workforces.

A few things from the top of my head:
The UK minimum wage is about 10-20% lower than ours. In Ireland there are few if any jobs in the public sector that pay the minimum wage; I'd suspect that there are grades in the UK that are much closer to their minimum wage, than there are in the Irish PS that are close to our minimum wage, based on comparison of the grades between HMRC and Revenue. (But then again, HMRC has plenty of problems, hardly a shining example of a well run tax administration.)

The figures being compared for the Irish pay differential include the pay of the semi-state sector here, which bumps up our PS figure by 3-4% IIRC.

Having said that, 25% is still quite a gap to bridge.

ParkRunner

murphaph wrote: »

The average pay differential between public and private sectors in Ireland, being as it is (at least) 3.5 times greater than the same differential in the UK means that public sector workers need to be adjusted first, to bring that percentage differential into line with the UK at least (to fairen things up a bit) before increasing taxes on the general populous (though if they did both in parallel I'd be ok with that too if it worked).

This pay differential is the most crucial figure to look at IMO as it is pay rate and exchange rate independent. It focuses solely on the rate at which public servants are paid above private sector employees and nobody has been able to offer to real answer as to why there should be such a difference in percentage pay between the UK and Ireland. There simply is no good reason for the difference other than the fact that public servants in Ireland are still overpaid (on average, some will be underpaid compared to the private sector, but they are in a minority and more likely to be in specialist roles).

Just out of curiosity if the public service was to be hammered with paycuts of say 10%, resulting in shy of €750m in immediate net savings, where do we turn to next? Target the public sector again?

Celticfire

EF wrote: »

Just out of curiosity if the public service was to be hammered with paycuts of say 10%, resulting in shy of €750m in immediate net savings, where do we turn to next? Target the public sector again?

Absolutely.. In 6 month time that pay cut would also be forgotten and the exact same bull would be spouted again. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

barneystinson

Celticfire wrote: »

Absolutely.. In 6 month time that pay cut would also be forgotten and the exact same bull would be spouted again. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

Just because there'll always be people (like some of the posters on here who think PS workers "rob the country blind" etc etc) who won't be happy no matter how much is cut, doesn't necessarily mean that from an objective basis there shouldn't be pay cuts in some or all areas. I'd be perfectly happy to see a benchmarking exercise to establish what should happen next.

woodoo

murphaph wrote: »

The average pay differential between public and private sectors in Ireland, being as it is (at least) 3.5 times greater than the same differential in the UK means that public sector workers need to be adjusted first, to bring that percentage differential into line with the UK at least (to fairen things up a bit) before increasing taxes on the general populous (though if they did both in parallel I'd be ok with that too if it worked).

Do you support bringing our social welfare rates in line with the UK too?

Celticfire

barneystinson wrote: »

Just because there'll always be people (like some of the posters on here who think PS workers "rob the country blind" etc etc) who won't be happy no matter how much is cut, doesn't necessarily mean that from an objective basis there shouldn't be pay cuts in some or all areas. I'd be perfectly happy to see a benchmarking exercise to establish what should happen next.

What if that benchmarking exercise recommended pay rises? Would you still be happy?

woodoo

barneystinson wrote: »

A few things from the top of my head:
The UK minimum wage is about 10-20% lower than ours. In Ireland there are few if any jobs in the public sector that pay the minimum wage; I'd suspect that there are grades in the UK that are much closer to their minimum wage, than there are in the Irish PS that are close to our minimum wage, based on comparison of the grades between HMRC and Revenue. (But then again, HMRC has plenty of problems, hardly a shining example of a well run tax administration.)

Welfare is the true baseline and in the UK is is low. Here sometimes people are better off on welfare than taking a job for 40 or 50K in some instances.

TheRealPONeil

woodoo wrote: »

Here sometimes people are better off on welfare than taking a job for 40 or 50K in some instances.

Source ??

woodoo

TheRealPONeil wrote: »

Source ??

http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2012/06/ESRI-report.pdf

Farmer Pudsey

TheRealPONeil wrote: »

Source ??

Professor Tol's report also any body that can add 2+2 by just looking at welfare benifits and calculating how much it costs for to go to work and if you are on welfare how much you will recieve in Rent allowance, medical card, back to school allowance and the rest.

barneystinson

Celticfire wrote: »

What if that benchmarking exercise recommended pay rises? Would you still be happy?

Oh dear, you obviously haven't read much of the thread, or even the last few pages or you'd see that I'm a public sector employee.

So I reiterate, I'd be perfectly happy with ongoing benchmarking if it would help avoid arguments of the type that's raging on here about PS wages. Wouldn't you?

Celticfire

barneystinson wrote: »

Oh dear, you obviously haven't read much of the thread, or even the last few pages or you'd see that I'm a public sector employee.

So I reiterate, I'd be perfectly happy with ongoing benchmarking if it would help avoid arguments of the type that's raging on here about PS wages. Wouldn't you?

I've read plenty of this thread and plenty of others like it. Some people will never be happy as long as someone else is making more money than they are no matter what skill-set or expertise that individual has and god forbid they are Public Service because no matter what your job you're automatically targeted as being overpaid.

If another benchmarking was carried out there would still be the same people finding fault with it. All they want is everyone else except themselves to carry the burden. The lack of people paying the household charge proves that. Let someone else pay.

TheRealPONeil

woodoo wrote: »

http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2012/06/ESRI-report.pdf

The withdrawn report working paper ??

barneystinson

woodoo wrote: »

Welfare is the true baseline and in the UK is is low. Here sometimes people are better off on welfare than taking a job for 40 or 50K in some instances.

I'm not disputing the bit about some people being better off on welfare, but I don't really see how it contributes to explaining the difference in the gap between average public sector pay vs private sector pay between the UK and here?

If anything it should inflate private sector wages here, or push down private sector wages over there... (or am I missing something! )

barneystinson

Celticfire wrote: »

I've read plenty of this thread and plenty of others like it. Some people will never be happy as long as someone else is making more money than they are no matter what skill-set or expertise that individual has and god forbid they are Public Service because no matter what your job you're automatically targeted as being overpaid.

If another benchmarking was carried out there would still be the same people finding fault with it. All they want is everyone else except themselves to carry the burden. The lack of people paying the household charge proves that. Let someone else pay.

I agree with you but only up to a point.

There's plenty of scope in SOME areas of the public sector to improve efficiency and reduce costs. It seems to me, and plenty of the PS people I talk to daily, that it's a mathematical impossibility to get to the Troika targets without further cuts to pay in the PS.

Aren't our teachers about the best paid in Europe for the hours worked (http://ronanlyons.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/eurozone-teachers-days-worked-2.png) - can we justify that? And can we justify cuts to vital frontline services in the HSE rather than ask the staff there to bear a little bit more pain first? These are tough questions.

barneystinson

Celticfire wrote: »

Some people will never be happy as long as someone else is making more money than they are no matter what skill-set or expertise that individual has

I reckon I could pluck 5 or 6 people out of the office where I work tomorrow, who earn combined salaries of 200-300k, and there would be no discernible change in output. That would be maybe 7-8% of the workforce. There are still plenty of people across the PS who are just marking off time, and we can't afford to carry them any more. I know them, my girlfriend knows them, if you work in the PS are you telling me you don't know any of them?

kippy

barneystinson wrote: »

I reckon I could pluck 5 or 6 people out of the office where I work tomorrow, who earn combined salaries of 200-300k, and there would be no discernible change in output. That would be maybe 7-8% of the workforce. There are still plenty of people across the PS who are just marking off time, and we can't afford to carry them any more. I know them, my girlfriend knows them, if you work in the PS are you telling me you don't know any of them?

I'd agree 100% with that summation.

Japer

barneystinson wrote: »

Aren't our teachers about the best paid in Europe for the hours worked (http://ronanlyons.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/eurozone-teachers-days-worked-2.png) - can we justify that?

.....only the public service in this country would justify that. Thats how little they care about the future generations of Irish people who will have to repay all the borrowed money ( to pay their public service pay + pensions ) back.

kippy

Japer wrote: »

.....only the public service in this country would justify that. Thats how little they care about the future generations of Irish people who will have to repay all the borrowed money ( to pay their public service pay + pensions ) back.

Japer, you seem to be making out that the ONLY money we borrow is to cover public sector pay and pensions.
This is 100% incorrect.

Japer

the country continues to borrow huge sums of money for all sorts of things.
That makes it all the more scandalous we are paing + pensioning our public servants at such high levels.

kippy

Japer wrote: »

the country continues to borrow huge sums of money for all sorts of things.
That makes it all the more scandalous we are paing + pensioning our public servants at such high levels.

The point is, we are not borrowing 18 billionish, per annum JUST to pay public sector wages and pensions.
You want the public sector to help out more? Perhaps to reduce the deficit by another 5 billion or so?
That would require a pay cut across the sector of roughly 40%.

Japer

5 billion per year saved is 50 billion per decade. great , lets go for it.