Want to save the country money?

Annasopra

Chemical Burn wrote: »

Abolish Pavee Point
Abolish Women's Council
Abolish Immigrants Council
Abolish Foreign Aid
Abolish Dole for people on it for more than a year, who REFUSE to get a job
Put price of 20 fags up to 15 Euro
Stop non-citizens from removing money from Ireland via cash or bank accounts
Only pay dole to Irish citizens or to foreigners who have been living here for >5 years and working
Abolish Seanad
Decrease ALL tax to a blanket 15%

NWCI, Pavee point and ICI can't be abolished by anyone but their members but yeah - keep coming up with silly pointless ideas..<3

Logical_Bear

increase employment in the printing industry and print more money..simples.

Just dont tell anyone else we are printing sh1tloads of money,problem solved

Gumbo

Milk & Honey wrote: »

The private sector pay as little as they can which is well below the public sector levels. The private sector will not be hiring dossers from the public service if public service pay is cut or numbers are reduced.

Public servants do not pay for their own pensions. Their pensions are paid out of current government revenue i.e. by the taxpayer. No way does every public servant contribute to a fund that will pay his pension.

Milk & Honey wrote: »

Into what fund?
Deductions shown on a payslip do not mean payments into a fund.
What fund are you paying into?
Who manages it?
What are the benefits?
Do the benefits depend on the performance of the fund?

Who do you think you are fooling?

LOL, out of 1,895 posts, its these two posts alone that show how naive you are and that you havent a clue what your barking on about.

UCDVet

UCDVet wrote: »

If someone wants to have a child and is ready/willing to apply for a license they'd get all sorts of tax benefits to help them raise the child. Child tax credits, eligibility in social programs and all that jazz.

Life isn't predictable. Bad things happen. So if someone falls on hard times, someone who seemed like a good candidate for having a child; let's all chip in and help them.

So if a young girl has an unplanned pregnancy she can go through it knowing she'll be draining her parents dry (if they stand by her) and will never get any aid. That her child will be substantially disadvantaged through not only a lack of aid but the contrast between that absence of aid and the presence of aid for other families.

Secondly, who said that the people purposely making a living from having children wouldn't be good parents who'd pass the test? Surely you're more likely to pass the test when you're home all day and are completely child-focused?

I'd say cut child benefit altogether and instead provide a means tested supplement in which children are included. I don't understand why someone living perfectly comfortably should be getting money for having a child (especially when it could have been a planned pregnancy), and I don't see how it would be any help to anyone to push bad parents into a situation where they're also financially struggling parents.

I do think we should be trying to cut down on the number of people making a living from having children, but I would suggest a stringent means test on a child-based supplement would be more effective than testing people. I also think there'd be a loss of money for the government from all the parents who'd want to sue when told they're not good parents according to some test. I don't even know how such a test could be carried out and it would probably be pretty expensive.

Annasopra

Who actually tries to make a living from having children?

mango salsa

mango salsa wrote: »

Who actually tries to make a living from having children?

People do, honestly. Most that I know make no secret of it because they don't see anything wrong with it.

Ray Palmer

true-or-false wrote: »

People do, honestly. Most that I know make no secret of it because they don't see anything wrong with it.

Are they really that stupid? The state by no means pays enough to care for a child to make a profit. So a single child can mean your combined benefits are equal to a 35k salary. The 2 nd child doesn't double the benefits nor double your costs.

I am sure some have a child for the " freedom" but not quite for a profit. I guess it could be better than a minimum wage job.

Milk & Honey

kceire wrote: »

LOL, out of 1,895 posts, its these two posts alone that show how naive you are and that you havent a clue what your barking on about.

Is that so? Still no answer to my questions.

tayto lover

Milk & Honey wrote: »

Is that so? Still no answer to my questions.

When rubbish is posted it shouldn't be replied to. Simple as.
Haters hate and that's sad. Everyone should not be tarred with the same brush.

Milk & Honey

tayto lover wrote: »

When rubbish is posted it shouldn't be replied to. Simple as.
Haters hate and that's sad. Everyone should not be tarred with the same brush.

It is not a question of hating. The problem with the public service is that it cannot withstand scrutiny.
There is loads of bleating about paying for their own pensions which is baloney.

tayto lover

Milk & Honey wrote: »

It is not a question of hating. The problem with the public service is that it cannot withstand scrutiny.
There is loads of bleating about paying for their own pensions which is baloney.

They have stated that they are paying pensions and hasn't there been a pension levy too.

bnt

Chemical Burn wrote: »

Stop non-citizens from removing money from Ireland via cash or bank accounts

What would happen if every country took that attitude? It would have to work both ways i.e. stop people from bringing money in, too. Result: no more international trade.

Milk & Honey

tayto lover wrote: »

They have stated that they are paying pensions and hasn't there been a pension levy too.

They are not paying for their pensions. If they were they would be saying where the money goes. There are published reports from the government which I have linked showing conclusively that public servants do not pay for their pensions.
The so called pension levy was not a pension levy. It was a pay cut. Do not be fooled.

Chemical Burn

mango salsa wrote: »

NWCI, Pavee point and ICI can't be abolished by anyone but their members but yeah - keep coming up with silly pointless ideas..<3

Yes, but we can stop GIVING them money.

woodoo

Milk & Honey wrote: »

Into what fund?
Deductions shown on a payslip do not mean payments into a fund.
What fund are you paying into?
Who manages it?
What are the benefits?
Do the benefits depend on the performance of the fund?

Who do you think you are fooling?

That is not my problem. I pay pension contributions i have no way of controlling what the government do with it. But i am owed it at the end of my working life.

Annasopra

true-or-false wrote: »

People do, honestly. Most that I know make no secret of it because they don't see anything wrong with it.

Oh ffs try paying for nappies and babyfood and baby clothes and childcare yourself and then tell me honestly that people do that

Milk & Honey

woodoo wrote: »

That is not my problem. I pay pension contributions i have no way of controlling what the government do with it. But i am owed it at the end of my working life.

You do not pay for your pension. Your pension will be paid from current government revenue. In the real world a person pays into a pension fun and gets paid according as to how the fund performs.
Just because there is a mention of superannuation on your payslip does not mean you pay for your pension.
Your attitude that you do care where your pension comes from sums up the public service perfectly. No concern for the taxpayer who is paying for it all.

Gumbo

Milk & Honey wrote: »

You do not pay for your pension. Your pension will be paid from current government revenue. In the real world a person pays into a pension fun and gets paid according as to how the fund performs.
Just because there is a mention of superannuation on your payslip does not mean you pay for your pension.
Your attitude that you do care where your pension comes from sums up the public service perfectly. No concern for the taxpayer who is paying for it all.

Where will your state OAP of €231 come from?
Do you pay any contributions towards that?

Milk & Honey

kceire wrote: »

Where will your state OAP of €231 come from?
Do you pay any contributions towards that?

I won't be collecting OAP. I pay more than enough in taxes but I won't qualify for OAP.

Gumbo

Milk & Honey wrote: »

I won't be collecting OAP. I pay more than enough in taxes but I won't qualify for OAP.

Why won't you qualify?

Milk & Honey

kceire wrote: »

Why won't you qualify?

OAP is means tested. I am too well off.

up for anything

UCDVet wrote: »

Require a license before having children that demonstrate the would-be parents are financially and emotionally ready to raise a child. Otherwise, don't allow it.

Would clear up a lot of problems in 20 years.

Ireland in 100 years with a population you could count on one hand.

Chemical Burn wrote: »

Abolish Pavee Point
Abolish Women's Council
Abolish Immigrants Council
Abolish Foreign Aid
Abolish Dole for people on it for more than a year, who REFUSE to get a job
Put price of 20 fags up to 15 Euro
Stop non-citizens from removing money from Ireland via cash or bank accounts
Only pay dole to Irish citizens or to foreigners who have been living here for >5 years and working
Abolish Seanad
Decrease ALL tax to a blanket 15%

And not a word about putting up the price of alcohol! :eek:

franktheplank wrote: »

There's never a biro?

The entitlement culture at work in you, Frank.

twowheelsonly

Milk & Honey wrote: »

You do not pay for your pension. Your pension will be paid from current government revenue. In the real world a person pays into a pension fun and gets paid according as to how the fund performs.
Just because there is a mention of superannuation on your payslip does not mean you pay for your pension.
Your attitude that you do care where your pension comes from sums up the public service perfectly. No concern for the taxpayer who is paying for it all.

Is the Public Service worker not a tax-payer as well??

Public Service workers are paying into todays pool to guarantee that they themselves can draw from the pool when their time comes.

Different Pension plans work in different ways. In the case of the Public Service todays workers are paying the pensions of those that are retired already. Likewise, those retiring in the future will more or less have their pensions paid by those still working.
Methinks that you've been stung by a pension plan along the way somewhere. Perhaps one of those that promised a Billionaire lifestyle when you retired but unfortunately didn't quite perform as promised (because all the stars didn't line up with the moon etc..)

In my own case I stand to take approx €400 per week (at current rates) from my own pension. Considering that I have fortnightly deductions under the Pensions tab (including pension levy) of €230+ that's not a whole lot. The standard OAP is €231, add on my €115 makes it €348 so to be rated at €400 is certainly not what I would call a 'Gilt-Edged' free pension. Our pension is mandatory BTW, so it's mandatory deductions.


BACK ON TOPIC.... Why does every Public Service workplace not have a suggestion box for ideas and ways that staff can identify to save money?
Sure, it would be flooded for the first week with 'Sack half the management' suggestions but I have no doubt that they would get plenty of legitimate suggestions as well.
Every day I hear the words "Why don't they just...." but nobody ever thinks to harness the brain power of the people that are actually working on the floor.
Even on Boards there are usually some decent suggestions thrown about but the government seems to be focused on taking the brunt of cuts from their own staff.

srsly78

Milk & Honey wrote: »

OAP is means tested. I am too well off.

There is a non-means tested oap that you would get - the contributory oap. This is a whopping tenner more than the non-contributory version.

Ruudi_Mentari

Sorry, tried that I missed a dole payment and decided I wouldn't pursue it so they threatened to cut me off!!

.. or maybe it was their way of showing concern about my welfare.

Milk & Honey

srsly78 wrote: »

There is a non-means tested oap that you would get - the contributory oap. This is a whopping tenner more than the non-contributory version.

That is OACP a different thing. I don't have the contributions for OACP.

Milk & Honey

twowheelsonly wrote: »

Is the Public Service worker not a tax-payer as well??
No. The public service worker is a net beneficiary. He produces nothing and the net pay is drawn from the taxpayer. There might be a tax deduction shown on his payslip but that is only government accounting.

twowheelsonly wrote: »

Public Service workers are paying into todays pool to guarantee that they themselves can draw from the pool when their time comes.

There is no pool. It will be paid from current revenue when the time comes.

srsly78

Milk & Honey wrote: »

That is OACP a different thing. I don't have the contributions for OACP.

You can buy the missing contributions, since you are loaded this is no problem. Need at least 5-7 years of contributions tho: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/social_welfare/irish_social_welfare_system/social_insurance_prsi/voluntarysocialinsurancecontributions.html

woodoo

Milk & Honey wrote: »

You do not pay for your pension. Your pension will be paid from current government revenue. In the real world a person pays into a pension fun and gets paid according as to how the fund performs.
Just because there is a mention of superannuation on your payslip does not mean you pay for your pension.
Your attitude that you do care where your pension comes from sums up the public service perfectly. No concern for the taxpayer who is paying for it all.

What are you talking about. Everything goes into the central state coffers and then is doled out again as appropriate. Of course i pay for my pension.

By your logic you don't pay for your social welfare entitlements by way of PRSI as it doesn't go into a specific fund. :rolleyes: What a silly argument

woodoo

Milk & Honey wrote: »

OAP is means tested. I am too well off.

You must have inherited money

Milk & Honey

woodoo wrote: »

What are you talking about. Everything goes into the central state coffers and then is doled out again as appropriate. Of course i pay for my pension.

By your logic you don't pay for your social welfare entitlements by way of PRSI as it doesn't go into a specific fund. :rolleyes: What a silly argument

It is all just revenue to the government. There is just the central fund. Tax come into the exchequer, but not from public servants. Money goes out to public servants and pensioners. There is no fund. There was an attempt to set up such a fund but it was raided.
The money that will pay the pensions in years to come will have to come from the taxpayers of the day.

twowheelsonly

Is the Public Service worker not a tax-payer as well??
No. The public service worker is a net beneficiary. He produces nothing and the net pay is drawn from the taxpayer. There might be a tax deduction shown on his payslip but that is only government accounting.

Holy sweet J*s*s.. This really shows up your ridiculous thinking.
He produces nothing??? Like it or not, Services are an end product. Who do you think supplies your water, electricity, bins? How do you get your car taxed or your passport issued? Who polices your streets or locks up your prisoners? Who puts out your fires or attends to your accidents?

Net beneficiary?? That's fine so if in future discussions you're going to quote Nett rates of PS pay rather than Gross. So in reality the local copper is only worth 24,000 or so. Likewise the local fireman etc..
I understand your straight line thinking but unfortunately in the real world it doesn't ring true.

Milk & Honey wrote: »

There is no pool. It will be paid from current revenue when the time comes.

Ok so, forgot the inverted commas - 'Pool' (= Current Revenue) Same thing and the point still stands.

tenton

Our public service pay and pensions bill is nearly double what it was ten years ago, so to save the country money it should be cut maybe 40% on average at least. Our average public sector pay is still nearly double what it is in the UK, our nearest neighbour.

Milk & Honey

twowheelsonly wrote: »

Holy sweet J*s*s.. This really shows up your ridiculous thinking.
He produces nothing??? Like it or not, Services are an end product. Who do you think supplies your water, electricity, bins? How do you get your car taxed or your passport issued? Who polices your streets or locks up your prisoners? Who puts out your fires or attends to your accidents?

Net beneficiary?? That's fine so if in future discussions you're going to quote Nett rates of PS pay rather than Gross. So in reality the local copper is only worth 24,000 or so. Likewise the local fireman etc..
I understand your straight line thinking but unfortunately in the real world it doesn't ring true.



Ok so, forgot the inverted commas - 'Pool' (= Current Revenue) Same thing and the point still stands.

The public sector worker is an overhead. Someone else has to make real money to pay him and his pension. In the real world, real money has to be invested to produce a pension. If the investment fails there is no pension.
The person who has a fire has to pay for the privilege of having it put out and his property destroyed in the process. For every one who turns up at the scene of an accident there will be ten more sitting in an office calculating his wages and his pension.

woodoo

Milk & Honey wrote: »

The public sector worker is an overhead. Someone else has to make real money to pay him and his pension. In the real world, real money has to be invested to produce a pension. If the investment fails there is no pension.
The person who has a fire has to pay for the privilege of having it put out and his property destroyed in the process. For every one who turns up at the scene of an accident there will be ten more sitting in an office calculating his wages and his pension.

Its a service and it has to be paid for so you get to pay but you don't get to say how much, that is the governments decision and we all get to vote them in our out

twowheelsonly

Milk & Honey wrote: »

The public sector worker is an overhead. Someone else has to make real money to pay him and his pension. In the real world, real money has to be invested to produce a pension. If the investment fails there is no pension.

Then don't entrust the money to someone else. Either save it or invest it wisely yourself in a steady fund - not the 'I want to be a millionaire' fund - i.e. reduce the odds of the investment failing.
I'm not sure that you completely understand how the PS pension works, but at the moment it does and that seems to be the bug-bear of those that have lost out on Private pension funds.
The PS is always going to be an overhead, that's how every country in the world works unfortunately. It's a necessary overhead though.



Read this link and pay particular attention to the last line.

To paraphrase it - "So before making our minds up that firefighters are the financial problem, sit down with a local firefighter (read - Public Servant of any ilk..) and ask him about his job. Ask him about his wife and his sons or daughters, what kind of house he lives in, and what type of car he drives. And then ask yourself, if you were to take on such a career, what would you expect in return?


The person who has a fire has to pay for the privilege of having it put out and his property destroyed in the process. For every one who turns up at the scene of an accident there will be ten more sitting in an office calculating his wages and his pension.

Between Fire, Ambulance and Gardai you could easily have 12 - 20 people turn up at a road crash for instance. Are you saying that there's 120-200 staff dedicated to their wages and pensions alone? Of course not. They may be overstaffed, or they may not. Unless you've walked in their shoes it's impossible to say.

Generalisations are way to easy to throw out. It's easy for me to say, for instance, that there's way too many Barristers and Solicitors in the country earning way too much of the States money. And courts only work for 4 or 5 hours a day and have 3 months holidays. That's a fact by the way, because I know a fella that was in there one day....

Gumbo

tenton wrote: »

Our public service pay and pensions bill is nearly double what it was ten years ago, so to save the country money it should be cut maybe 40% on average at least. Our average public sector pay is still nearly double what it is in the UK, our nearest neighbour.

What has a country using different currency with different employment laws and a lower cost of living go to do with us?

Either bring the uk under our control or we go under their control, until such time idiotic comparisons are idiotic.

kraggy

Give children's allowance for the first child only.

Means test it so that households with a joint income of 80k or more dont get any.

Decrease single parents allowance with the more children said parent has.

Decrease dole according to length of time on it to incentivise the search for work. Immediately decrease dole of persons who have been ob welfare for 7 years or more.

Any savings should be used to ease taxes paid by lowest income workers. The present gap between dole and minimum wage take home pay is too narrow.

Finally, the eternal farce that is public housing must change. I know several people who have got public housing even though they are in employment just because they went on some waiting list 7 years ago. Why the hell should they be given a council house with cheap rent?

The era of the welfare state and sense of entitlement must end. There is little incentive to work in Ireland.

We're a laughing stock. Literally. My American and Canadian and even Uk friends here in Korea think I'm exaggerating or taking the piss when I tell them of the welfare State that is Ireland.

And it should go without saying that the public sector needs to be slashed. Both pay and numbers of workers. But start at the top. Consultant doctors and senior civil servants get paid way more than their European counterparts.

In general, the whole country needs to work more, both public and private sector. We will be left behind by Asia within a few years. The strides they have made in just a few years are staggering and it's down to sheer hard work.