Croke Park Agreement beyond 2014

ardmacha

Yes, but raises are only being given by profitable businesses. Any company that's in trouble is reducing hours, making redundancies and/or cutting salaries and that's been the case for the past 4 years now.

Any unprofitable business experiencing large demand for its services while providing those services at little or no cost would simply increase its prices.

Idbatterim

dont nearly 50% off all workers pay no PAYE?

woodoo

The majority of this 36 million borrowed each day goes on welfare.

Idbatterim

The majority of this 36 million borrowed each day goes on welfare.

we can blame the government 100% for this, the vast majority on it would prefer to be working. the career welfarers are enabled by the government. there is no confidence, we are facing at least 2 more harsh budgets, 92 billion is deposited in Irish banks and credit unions! 49% of small businesses are on the verge of collapse according to an article i read the other day. The debt being amassed is truly shocking & the current shower in government are equally as spineless, clueless and inept...

n97 mini

woodoo wrote: »

The majority of this 36 million borrowed each day goes on welfare.

You can't say that. You can say that the biggest head of expenditure currently is Social Welfare with Public Sector not too far behind.

The reality is that regardless of what PS staff are paid, or how big their mortgages are, that the expenditure on their pay and pensions is just unsustainable. (The same goes for SW expenditure)

Something is going to snap eventually, as the gap between income and expenditure cannot be closed with the Croke Park Agreement as it currently stands.

sarumite

Godge wrote: »

I only replied to your post to help you understand the real position.

There is a pay freeze in the public sector.

There is a freeze on pay rates. The real position is that a pay rise is a pay rise and that pay rises are occuring. I am not opposed to pay rises in the PS (as stated).

And the public sector is not some mom and pop SME.

I never stated it was and it was disingenuous to suggest I did. There is no other employer in the state like the government (and that includes Tesco). That is why we had benchmarking. Just because the PS is not like SME's doesn't mean there cannot be cross over in terms of jobs (administrative and management would be an obvious ones).

Good loser

n97 mini wrote: »

You can't say that. You can say that the biggest head of expenditure currently is Social Welfare with Public Sector not too far behind.

The reality is that regardless of what PS staff are paid, or how big their mortgages are, that the expenditure on their pay and pensions is just unsustainable. (The same goes for SW expenditure)

Something is going to snap eventually, as the gap between income and expenditure cannot be closed with the Croke Park Agreement as it currently stands.

Excellent post n97 mini. As I said elsewhere there should be a 5% per annum cut in social welfare AND public service pay and pensions for each of the next three years. No more increments.

Until the budget deficit is zero there shoud be no further improvements in pay or conditions in the public service (or welfare).

The more wages increase in the private sector the better for everybody - it means they can be afforded. If Tesco keeps increasing wages there will in time be a flood of public servants leaving the sector to get jobs there.
LOL.

ardmacha

Until the budget deficit is zero there shoud be no further improvements in pay or conditions in the public service

There won't be, this is called the Croke Park Agreement.
Try and keep up.

woodoo

The private sector need to get cracking and generate some products and jobs. Far too much whinging about the public sector to tell the truth, everywhere from message boards to the papers to TV. Put your energies into coming up with something sellable. The deficit can't be fixed by the cutting the public service. Yet its all people talk about, it and social welfare.

femur61

In todays paper it stated child benefit in the UK was £20 a week. :eek: I know that has nothing to do with the CPA but there is the reality of where we should be. Everything needs to come down to the EU average and that includes the wages of the PS.

ardmacha

Everything needs to come down to the EU average and that includes the wages of the PS.

Does it also include things like class sizes?

Some things need to to increase to the EU average, notably taxes.

murphaph

woodoo wrote: »

The private sector need to get cracking and generate some products and jobs. Far too much whinging about the public sector to tell the truth, everywhere from message boards to the papers to TV. Put your energies into coming up with something sellable. The deficit can't be fixed by the cutting the public service. Yet its all people talk about, it and social welfare.

You are the one in favour of cutting SW however

I'd be in favour of cutting both SW and PS pay a bit further with most of the savings in the PS coming from maling extraneous staff redundant on industray standard redundancy packages (say 5 weeks per year service, capped).

Anyone who has any dealings with local government can testify to the staggering wastage that goes on there. We could almost immediately save money by amalgamating local authority back office functions (HR, finance etc) into regional "back offices". Many private companies (even larger ones) contract out all their payroll stuff to dedicated payroll providers, local government should be no different, they could be considered mid sized companies (although with overpaid CEO's).

We could then move towards regional authorities and start making extraneous planning officers and so on redundant on the same terms. There's tonnes of fat to trim from the PS without even touching actual wages but ye don't want anything touched!

woodoo

murphaph wrote: »

You are the one in favour of cutting SW however

I'm just like everyone else here... cut someone else. I'm with the 'cut anyone but me' brigade

RichardAnd

ardmacha wrote: »

Does it also include things like class sizes?

Some things need to to increase to the EU average, notably taxes.

Here's an interesting article from wikipedia on the tax rate of Europe.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_of_Europe


Ireland ranks third (from the top) on maximum income tax (excluding Montenegro). It's lower on the list for VAT, yet still higher than most other counties on the list. Granted, the corporate taxation here is quite low but that's not a personal tax and it's a whole other issue.

It's a common opinion upon this board and abroad, that Ireland is a low tax country yet there seems to be little evidence that Ireland is exceptional in any case. Let me put myself forward as an example.

I earn 25k a year which, after tax, leave me with 1791 a month, or 21492 a year. On top of that, I pay car tax (or whatever it's actually called), 23% VAT on just about everything I buy, excessive tax on petrol and I've no doubt that a few new charges are hiding in the eaves in the coming years. I can't say just how much of my money goes to the state year year but, on top of income, I would put it at at about 5k, ~20% of all that I earn.

To me, that seems to be a fairly decent contribution when one considers that I make use of very few services nor draw upon any social welfare. If I get promoted, my tax outgoings will only increase and if I eventually become a home-owner, I will end up paying a property tax along with water charges and anything else that might be on the way.

I don't think Ireland is a high tax economy but there are just so many charges and stealth taxes around that I think it's disingenuous to claim that it's low tax either.

ardmacha

I can't say just how much of my money goes to the state year year but, on top of income, I would put it at at about 5k, ~20% of all that I earn.

In any modern European economy public activity accounts for 45-50% of the economy, which must be funded by taxes or charges. Here people expect this European level of service, education, welfare, health etc but consider themselves hard done by for paying amounts nowhere near able to sustain such services.

srsly78

RichardAnd wrote: »

H
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_rates_of_Europe


Ireland ranks third (from the top) on maximum income tax (excluding Montenegro). It's lower on the list for VAT, yet still higher than most other counties on the list. Granted, the corporate taxation here is quite low but that's not a personal tax and it's a whole other issue.

That list is plain wrong. The figure for Ireland is actually correct, it includes income tax and USC. The figures for other countries are not correct, it leaves out their massive social security taxes. It's not an easy comparison, for example in some countries you are required by law to take out private health insurance. Also, in Germany most people have to pay an extra 5% surcharge to rebuild the east (this is not included in the figures).

Having worked in several of European countries I can tell you that your "take home" pay in Ireland will be a LOT higher.

sarumite

ardmacha wrote: »

In any modern European economy public activity accounts for 45-50% of the economy, which must be funded by taxes or charges. Here people expect this European level of service, education, welfare, health etc but consider themselves hard done by for paying amounts nowhere near able to sustain such services.

I don't believe we do expect the European level of service to be honest. The biggest expenditure is traditionally universal healthcare, something Ireland does not have. Irish universities are underfunded. Other areas such as infrastructure also lag behind Europe.

ParkRunner

RichardAnd wrote: »

I earn 25k a year which, after tax, leave me with 1791 a month, or 21492 a year. On top of that, I pay car tax (or whatever it's actually called), 23% VAT on just about everything I buy, excessive tax on petrol and I've no doubt that a few new charges are hiding in the eaves in the coming years. I can't say just how much of my money goes to the state year year but, on top of income, I would put it at at about 5k, ~20% of all that I earn.
.

Just be glad you don't work in the public sector or you would be taking home about 1,200 less than you do now

Lumbo

murphaph wrote: »

You are the one in favour of cutting SW however

I'd be in favour of cutting both SW and PS pay a bit further with most of the savings in the PS coming from maling extraneous staff redundant on industray standard redundancy packages (say 5 weeks per year service, capped).

Anyone who has any dealings with local government can testify to the staggering wastage that goes on there. We could almost immediately save money by amalgamating local authority back office functions (HR, finance etc) into regional "back offices". Many private companies (even larger ones) contract out all their payroll stuff to dedicated payroll providers, local government should be no different, they could be considered mid sized companies (although with overpaid CEO's).

We could then move towards regional authorities and start making extraneous planning officers and so on redundant on the same terms. There's tonnes of fat to trim from the PS without even touching actual wages but ye don't want anything touched!

There's plenty of change going on in Local Authorities. It's very ignorant of you to say that all change is resisted.

One thing that's not going to fly is reducing head count further in Local Authorites. 20% has already been removed from the system, a lot more then what has gone from Education and Health.

As for shared services, that's the big thing at the moment but in my field we're still in the process of compiling work flow charts. IMO a decision on how/or if the services will be centralised won't be made for some time yet.

n97 mini

Lumbo wrote: »

One thing that's not going to fly is reducing head count further in Local Authorites. 20% has already been removed from the system

Can you provide a source for that figure?

ardmacha

Numbers are certainly being reduced



And people have done a lot to reorganise to make this possible. Which is not to say that some haven't.

Lumbo

n97 mini wrote: »

Can you provide a source for that figure?

Staff numbers in the local government service have reduced
from 37,243 in 2008 to 29,000 at the end of February 2012, a reduction of over 8,000 staff (21.52 per cent).

Have a read of this http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/LocalGovernmentEfficiencyReviewGroup/PublicationsDocuments/FileDownLoad,23533,en.pdf

murphaph

If we could just stop the backslapping on reduced numbers in local government for a sec and think about how we're doing this and what it means.

Let's take the example I used, a payroll department (HR, whatever):

At present let's ay we have 40 local authorities (think we have more but it's not relevant). We have 40 payroll departments processing salaries. most of the work is (or certainly should be) automated. Now, the currnt way of "saving" money is to reduce headcount through attrition in all 40 payroll departments, putting all 40 departments under strain (let's assume) and actually reducing the service provided to the local authority employees in the process.

My solution, and the solution that would likely be employed in the private sector, would be never to have 40 departments doing roughly the same thing in the first place, when it can all be centralised. You'd amalgamate the 40 payroll departments into say 10 and have say 20% more staff in these 1 departments than you'd nominally have in each of the 40 departments, to cut them some slack. You'd still reduce headcount dramatically and shouldn't see any reduction in levels of service (the opposite in fact if done properly).

You'd then make your real savings by making targetted redundancies.The current "we're reducing headcount in a haphazard, non-targetted and random fashion" is a load of rubbish. Reducing headcount != making savings if we are just reducing headcount by letting random people retire and not replacing them, indeed it could well end up costing us money as unqualified people make decisions instead.

The only problem with my solution is that it takes political courage to make targetted redundancies and the unions (ie you public servants) are against it come hell or high water, but then bleat on about how under pressure your department is. Blame the excess admin staff who haven't retired and the unions (you!) who protect their redundant positions!

Brussels Sprout

murphaph wrote: »

The current "we're reducing headcount in a haphazard, non-targetted and random fashion" is a load of rubbish. Reducing headcount != making savings if we are just reducing headcount by letting random people retire and not replacing them, indeed it could well end up costing us money as unqualified people make decisions instead.

As well as this, this strategy is utterly unfair to young people. Somewhere along the line someone made a call on whether to further reduce wages or to simply stop hiring new people. Young people don't vote much and don't have a seat at the social partnership table so it was a no-brainer politically

murphaph wrote: »

The only problem with my solution is that it takes political courage to make targetted redundancies and the unions (ie you public servants) are against it come hell or high water, but then bleat on about how under pressure your department is. Blame the excess admin staff who haven't retired and the unions (you!) who protect their redundant positions!

This government has yet to make any tough decisions. Point in case is the spineless climb down on means testing of child benefit payments. On that basis this coalition definitely does not have the stomach for a fight with the unions despite their record majority in the Dail.


The common theme here is that the path of least resistance is the one that is always taken even if it leads to a longer more uncomfortable journey and is not equally fair to all travellers.

goldenhoarde

Spending 191.5million a day in this country of which we have to borrow 36 million

How long can this go on? we need to come up with ways to stop this and evryone needs to share the load in an honest fashion

By that i mean whenever we (the government) suggets targeting some specific spending we (the people) are up in arms

Sooner or later we are going to have to bite the bullet and tackle this. whay wait till we cannot borrow no more?

How about benchmarking all wages in the country to the Euro average and also the costs of living/doing business and start afresh?

or every working person in ireland pay an extra 16.94 euro tax a day - 36million / 2.125million !!!!! (source : http://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/labourmarket/principalstatistics/ )

srsly78

goldenhoarde wrote: »

How about benchmarking all wages in the country to the Euro average and also the costs of living/doing business and start afresh?

How would this work in the private sector?

Brussels Sprout

goldenhoarde wrote: »

How about benchmarking all wages in the country to the Euro average and also the costs of living/doing business and start afresh?

Can you flesh out in more concrete detail how this would be achieved? No offence but it sounds like a half baked pub argument.

Gumbo

femur61 wrote: »

In todays paper it stated child benefit in the UK was £20 a week. :eek: I know that has nothing to do with the CPA but there is the reality of where we should be. Everything needs to come down to the EU average and that includes the wages of the PS.

UK : 20 x 52 = 1040 stg
IRL 140 x 12 = 1680 €

Exchange rate puts it 1323€ V 1680€
So we are not that fr ahead I them considering increased cost of living in IRL.

Brussels Sprout

srsly78 wrote: »

How would this work in the private sector?

What private sector?

n97 mini

Lumbo wrote: »

Staff numbers in the local government service have reduced
from 37,243 in 2008 to 29,000 at the end of February 2012, a reduction of over 8,000 staff (21.52 per cent).

Have a read of this http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/LocalGovernmentEfficiencyReviewGroup/PublicationsDocuments/FileDownLoad,23533,en.pdf

That report is dated 2010. Where do you get the 29,000 figure from?

n97 mini

ardmacha wrote: »

Numbers are certainly being reduced



And people have done a lot to reorganise to make this possible. Which is not to say that some haven't.

We're back to 2005 levels, according to that graph which means we're only 2 years from the peak, whereas the economy is at pre-boom levels. I wouldn't be congratulating anyone just yet.

The other interesting thing about that graph is that the economy peaked in 2007 but the public sector kept growing.

Farmer Pudsey

What a lot of Irish People do not relise is the reason whay we have large class sizes, underfunded 3rd level and health services is because of the level of wages paid to staff working in these area's.

If teachers were paid 20% less we could have 20 more teachers and reduce class sizes by 20%. Also we have one of the shortest school years and also school days in Europe. Money in Education, health and co Councils is swollowed up by wages. Also we have an issue with too much management in the CS and there pay is often 50% above EU counterparts.

The government is unwilling to do anything about this so it will continue until the country goes bust like the late eighties.

lily09

If teachers were paid 20% less we could have 20 more teachers and reduce class sizes by 20%. Also we have one of the shortest school years and also school days in Europe.

It has been stated many times on this forum that we also have one the highest amount of hours for teacher pupil contact. Just because our school system is arranged differently does not mean it is the shortest hours.

n97 mini

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

If teachers were paid 20% less we could have 20 more teachers and reduce class sizes by 20%.

Pupil:teacher ratios in small rural schools are probably more to blame. If you have 12 pupils you can get a 2nd teacher. That's one teacher per six pupils. Not to mention secretaries, care-takers etc, who also need to be employed for a very small number of pupils.

Therefore I would look to economies of scale and reduce the number of primary schools to match the number of secondary schools first.

n97 mini

lily09 wrote: »

It has been stated many times on this forum that we also have one the highest amount of hours for teacher pupil contact.

That's timetabled hours, not optional hours?

Have you a link to back that up?

lily09

E

n97 mini wrote: »

That's timetabled hours, not optional hours?

Have you a link to back that up?

http://www.oecd.org/edu/highereducationandadultlearning/48631582.pdf (p429)

Sorry Im not able to post tables.
I am talking about primary here, Irish primary teach for 915 hours per year, the oecd average is around 770. There are around 3 countries that teach longer than us.

skafish

There has been quite a few posts refering to people paying their fair share in this thread.
There is lots of speculation, including other threads in this forum about the current size of the "black economy", one estimate on another thread lately put it as high as €20 billion.

I suggest that if all SMEs and sole traders were audited on a regular basis, and obliged to pay their fair share,the countrys economic woes would be sorted out a lot quicker than by further erosion of PS pay and conditions.

Personally, I would start with the Quinn family. Move them into a standard council house and turn their mansions into nursing homes.

Of course, the above would probably involve employing a few more revenue inspectors and nurses, so I expect little support here;)

ardmacha

Have you a link to back that up?

This question of the school year has been posted many times, but like a lot of other things here people keep talking nonsense no matter how many times links are posted. Presumably if Farmer Pudsey has reputable data on the matter he can post a link.

We're back to 2005 levels, according to that graph which means we're only 2 years from the peak, whereas the economy is at pre-boom levels. I wouldn't be congratulating anyone just yet.

The population has grown since 2005, as you very well know, and many public services have grown even faster like the 20% extra in third level education. But you are not interested in facts, it spoils the rant.

n97 mini

ardmacha wrote: »

The population has grown since 2005, as you very well know, and many public services have grown even faster like the 20% extra in third level education. But you are not interested in facts, it spoils the rant.

Hmmm. The population may have grown, but it's the tax take that pays the wages, and it is at what, 2000 levels? But you are not interested in facts, it spoils your rant.

ardmacha

Hmmm. The population may have grown, but it's the tax take that pays the wages, and it is at what, 2000 levels?

Why is a greater tax not collected from the bigger population then, since these people are demanding services?

n97 mini

As Colm McCarthy said, if income tax was doubled for *everyone* in the morning, we still would not match our expenditure.

Gumbo

n97 mini wrote: »

That report is dated 2010. Where do you get the 29,000 figure from?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0726/breaking2.html#

Report in question March 2012 - http://www.environ.ie/en/LocalGovernment/LocalGovernmentEfficiencyReviewGroup/PublicationsDocuments/FileDownLoad,30779,en.pdf

sarumite

ardmacha wrote: »

Why is a greater tax not collected from the bigger population then, since these people are demanding services?

The old regime of taxing (and thus spending) borrowed money was unsustainable. We are collecting greater taxes from individuals, however the bulk of the taxes are now being derived from money earned which is less lucrative however a more sustainable model. In hindsight we know now that the government should never have allowed its tax take and expenditure to reach the level of boom period as it was unsustainable.

ardmacha

we know now that the government should never have allowed its tax take and expenditure to reach the level of boom period as it was unsustainable.

Yes, there should have been more taxation and less expenditure in the boom, leading to a big surplus. Everyone is vocal on the less expenditure end of things, but often less vocal on the more taxation aspect.

Both expenditure and taxation need to be patterns that are stable in the long term, avoiding short term stunts.

Farmer Pudsey

ardmacha wrote: »

Yes, there should have been more taxation and less expenditure in the boom, leading to a big surplus. Everyone is vocal on the less expenditure end of things, but often less vocal on the more taxation aspect.

Both expenditure and taxation need to be patterns that are stable in the long term, avoiding short term stunts.

Ardmacha
Where would we tax to get extra tax. Income, VAT, excise, property/ car or maybe fresh air.

At present the rate of tax and the cost of travel to work is undermining the labour market. Joan Bruton was on the topic in an indirect way yesterday in one of the Sunday papers. The Indo I think.

Every CS think that there is a tax bonanza out there to be collected. The reality is that 50% of SME are on the verge of collapse. It is costing the average family about 10-12K to work between travel or carfuel, childcare costs and other ancillary costs. Extra tax down on top of them will encourage them to exit the labour market.

The reality is that the trioka have pointed the finger at CS pay, CS pension, the excessive pay of higher level Public servants and the high rate of welfare.

If I was a CS below the age of 40 I would want all this sorted as it will come back to haunt these workers as the present system is unsustainable.

donalg1

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

Ardmacha
Where would we tax to get extra tax. Income, VAT, excise, property/ car or maybe fresh air.

At present the rate of tax and the cost of travel to work is undermining the labour market. Joan Bruton was on the topic in an indirect way yesterday in one of the Sunday papers. The Indo I think.

Every CS think that there is a tax bonanza out there to be collected. The reality is that 50% of SME are on the verge of collapse. It is costing the average family about 10-12K to work between travel or carfuel, childcare costs and other ancillary costs. Extra tax down on top of them will encourage them to exit the labour market.

The reality is that the trioka have pointed the finger at CS pay, CS pension, the excessive pay of higher level Public servants and the high rate of welfare.

If I was a CS below the age of 40 I would want all this sorted as it will come back to haunt these workers as the present system is unsustainable.

Dont the CS workers have to travel to work and pay for childcare too, many of these on less than €30k per annum, yes cuts are needed provided they are done the right way, same way as new taxes need to be introduced. Taxes that arent always transaction based which will help provide a stable base for the future, taxes that encompass everyone and taxes that are fair and equitable obviously.

ardmacha

The reality is that the trioka have pointed the finger at CS pay, CS pension, the excessive pay of higher level Public servants and the high rate of welfare.

And the need for a property tax, lower tax credits, water charges .....


But it goes back to my earlier point, we cannot have services such as those operated by nations with 47% of GNP collected as revenue from revenue of 37% of GNP.

Head The Wall

kceire wrote: »

UK : 20 x 52 = 1040 stg
IRL 140 x 12 = 1680 €

Exchange rate puts it 1323€ V 1680€
So we are not that fr ahead I them considering increased cost of living in IRL.

Yes, 27% is not that far ahead.

Gumbo

Head The Wall wrote: »

Yes, 27% is not that far ahead.

Considering the need to constantly ignore facts, the real difference is less.
UK child benefit rate is £20.30 per week.

UK : 20.30 x 52 = £1055.60 stg
IRL : 140 x 12 = €1680

Exchange rate puts that at €1346.00
So, €1,346 Vs €1,680

Difference of 334e
334/1680 * 100 = 19.88%

sarumite

kceire wrote: »

i get 18.5% Higher than the UK figure

And based on the cost of living between the 2 totally different countries then its not a big gap at all, and justified in my opinion.

Edit :

Considering the need to constantly ignore facts, the real difference is less.
UK child benefit rate is £20.30 per week.

UK : 20.30 x 52 = £1055.60 stg
IRL : 140 x 12 = €1680

Exchange rate puts that at €1346.00
So, €1,346 Vs €1,680

That’s a real difference of 18.5% when compared to the UK rates.

It should be noted that the Euro is down around 15% from its pre-crisis average against the sterling. While this will affect the conversion rate, it usually doesn't directly translate into spending power.