Kenny declares war on welfare culture

chopper6

SupaNova2 wrote: »

For IT courses it varies, I would have classed most of it as not boring, it wasn't the reason people were dropping out of my course. You are closer when you say it requires a different mindset or skillset. A mindset that is severely underdeveloped in secondary schools where programming should start.

It should be part of the options in secondary school alright,so that people with an aptitude can learn it or improve on it if they have an interest.

It should by no means be compulsory though as most students will rightly find it difficult and will tend to lose interest.

murphaph

In Germany people who work with their hands almost always earn a good deal less than those that primarily use their heads. It's perhaps a cultural thing but Germans seem to automatically respect engineers and scientists.

Borboletinha

chopper6 wrote: »

It should be part of the options in secondary school alright,so that people with an aptitude can learn it or improve on it if they have an interest.

It should by no means be compulsory though as most students will rightly find it difficult and will tend to lose interest.

A lot of students find chemistry difficult and it is compulsory anyway. Most students will use a computer way more than the chemistry table in their lives . At least the main concepts(variables,loops,conditionals)
should be taught. It's being taught in parts of the world already. Quite a few teenagers writing apps and games in America for instance.

creep

Programming should definitly be an option in secondary and not just Java or something, should be exams for Oracle, PHP, C++, Networking etc so a person can take more than one of them. Allready subjects in place for science, business etc, why not Computing?

Should be equivalent to the certs you have to pay for to do. Most jobs you only specialise in one area and then after they finish school can get the professional cert. They could even start working right away!

Also maybe small bits in primary school as well because thats when the mind is developing and will get a better understanding

FTA69

Sleepy wrote: »

I'd agree with you that a 50 hour week is nothing unusual. Looking back, it was FTA's posts that seemed to be making the inference that it was something unique to unskilled site labourers. Apologies for confusing your posts with his.

What? I never made that inference whatsoever.

I said that labourers worked hard and long hours doing taxing work in all weather conditions. If anything is being inferred here is that kids were leaving school and getting paid big money for doing f*ck all, usually accompanied by grossly exaggerated wage scales that are plucked from thin air.

I never once said that hard work was limited to construction.

Idbatterim

I was thinking about this thread while at work today and putting myself into the shoes of the Minister for Finance. He has a hard job trying to balance the books in fairness and it's hard to please everyone as we all feel hard done by when our finances are cut.

Much of the reason for people feeling bad is because people don't see that everyone is effected equally. They feel that the rich are getting away lightly while the poor are paying for the sins of the rich. Hard to disagree with that when you see the Medical Cards being removed from the sick, special needs, old and infirm in a willy nilly fashion.

well you cant please everyone is the thing, the fact that he is pissing various groups off actually proves that hard decisions are being taken, the government as you say are pretty poor at putting across the message of just how unpalatable any option will be to any interest group here, unless its more of tax the rich etc :rolleyes: Im wondering what FG have planned or up their sleeve, I'm wondering if is naive to cut the pensioners, morally it is right to do, but politically, finding whatever was saved by the phone allowance somewhere else would have been very easy, for example motor taxed wasnt increased, thats a dead cert nearly every year, I admire them for what they are trying to achieve, I just hope it doesnt come back to bite them in the a**...

Its a fine line for FG, if you arent prepared to be economically irresponsible, every other party in government here are, good time charlies etc like FF, you risk being punished for actually getting stuff done and not buying people votes and then getting dumped at the next election only for more boom - bust type government and policies, then you are back in power with the task of cleaning up the mess and then back out again a few years later...

wexie

chopper6 wrote: »

Well the prevailing attitude,at least on boards *seems* to be:"I'm in IT...how come people in in the PS get paid more than me and i have a degree y'know".
or:"I've got a degree in IT,why should i work in any other sector,the dole will do me and everybody else is to blame".

IF that is the case (and I don't agree it is) then that's complete nonsense, a degree is a base to start from, once you have it you start adding skills and experience which is what you're paid for.

chopper6 wrote: »

Have you ever done 8 hours of lifting and carrying?

One more than one occasion, do you think this kinda stuff just magically appears in racks? Or that it's unicorns jumping through hoops that arranged rooms like these?

To say that everybody in IT sits at a desk staring at a screen only indicates you've absolutely **** all idea of the IT industry and is as ignorant as someone else saying that everybody doing manual work is 'unskilled'.

7upfree

tayto lover wrote: »

I was thinking about this thread while at work today and putting myself into the shoes of the Minister for Finance. He has a hard job trying to balance the books in fairness and it's hard to please everyone as we all feel hard done by when our finances are cut.

Much of the reason for people feeling bad is because people don't see that everyone is effected equally. They feel that the rich are getting away lightly while the poor are paying for the sins of the rich. Hard to disagree with that when you see the Medical Cards being removed from the sick, special needs, old and infirm in a willy nilly fashion.

Many of the problems arise because nobody is explaining the exact situation to those seriously effected and the media continually report that the gap between the rich and the poor is increasing.

His decisions should be:

1. Not to have 80% of the Education budget going on salaries.

2. Not to have 70% of the HSE budget squandered in a similar manner.

3. Not to spend more than the country takes in (FFS they're almost celebrating returning to the markets to borrow money to perpetuate the above charades).

4. Slash the number of politicians.

5. Slash the politicians gravy train.

Turkeys, Christmas, etc.

Horrid Henry

The people who keep this country going have had it up to here with getting hammered while a certain cohort happily freeload their way through life.

Why is it not possible to make the unemployed work for their benefits? I'm sure that the Gardai could do with admin people at no extra cost to free up trained police.

And the elephant in the room is immigration. I'm sick of seeing people from the Philipinnes on their way to work in the morning and seeing other specific ethnic groups strutting around shouting into mobile phones while the rest of us subsidise it.

Fair play to Enda Kenny...the welfare side of things needs to be radically reformed.

7upfree

Horrid Henry wrote: »

The people who keep this country going have had it up to here with getting hammered while a certain cohort happily freeload their way through life.

Why is it not possible to make the unemployed work for their benefits? I'm sure that the Gardai could do with admin people at no extra cost to free up trained police.

And the elephant in the room is immigration. I'm sick of seeing people from the Philipinnes on their way to work in the morning and seeing other specific ethnic groups strutting around shouting into mobile phones while the rest of us subsidise it.

Fair play to Enda Kenny...the welfare side of things needs to be radically reformed.

My hatred of that man runs very deep. But you make some excellent points.

Nazzu

I love how some people here are missing the bigger picture, the reason why so many people are on welfare and yes a portion of these never want to work, is simply due to the fact that this government and the previous government and not been able to create job initiatives that actually work and none of this rubbish saying that Dublin is booming, it is not the center of the universe. The west seems to be devoid of jobs, in my town on job websites we have just 6 jobs going and they all require 3 years plus experience in them and have 32 Jobbridge jobs currently being offered including stock assistant, housekeeper, car wash assistant and sandwich maker, we have a population of over 12000 and nothing else is going. You can say what you want about people on welfare but for every scrounger you have far more people who actually want to work, but there is just no work out there and there does not seem to be any on the horizon, especially in the west, which has the highest rate of emigration in the country.

Borboletinha

Horrid Henry wrote: »

The people who keep this country going have had it up to here with getting hammered while a certain cohort happily freeload their way through life.

Why is it not possible to make the unemployed work for their benefits? I'm sure that the Gardai could do with admin people at no extra cost to free up trained police.

And the elephant in the room is immigration. I'm sick of seeing people from the Philipinnes on their way to work in the morning and seeing other specific ethnic groups strutting around shouting into mobile phones while the rest of us subsidise it.

Fair play to Enda Kenny...the welfare side of things needs to be radically reformed.

If they are going to work in the morning what exactly are you subsidizing? Also are they not allowed to talk on their mobile phones that they bought with money from waking up and going to work every morning?

tayto lover

There's a lot of deja vous tonight.

flutered

henryporter wrote: »

Don't worry - Labour won't have much of a say in the next Government.

dont think they have in this one either

Xenji

Nazzu wrote: »

I love how some people here are missing the bigger picture, the reason why so many people are on welfare and yes a portion of these never want to work, is simply due to the fact that this government and the previous government and not been able to create job initiatives that actually work and none of this rubbish saying that Dublin is booming, it is not the center of the universe. The west seems to be devoid of jobs, in my town on job websites we have just 6 jobs going and they all require 3 years plus experience in them and have 32 Jobbridge jobs currently being offered including stock assistant, housekeeper, car wash assistant and sandwich maker, we have a population of over 12000 and nothing else is going. You can say what you want about people on welfare but for every scrounger you have far more people who actually want to work, but there is just no work out there and there does not seem to be any on the horizon, especially in the west, which has the highest rate of emigration in the country.

Very true, if during the next election one party comes up with a proper job drive and initiative they would have a landslide.

Horrid Henry

Borboletinha wrote: »

If they are going to work in the morning what exactly are you subsidizing? Also are they not allowed to talk on their mobile phones that they bought with money from waking up and going to work every morning?

If you read my post, I say that I see Filipinos working hard (fair play) and other ethnic groups not doing so.

tayto lover

Xenji wrote: »

Very true, if during the next election one party comes up with a proper job drive and initiative they would have a landslide.

The problem with that is that nobody will believe them after the last election promises.

Sleepy

Unfortunately, the reality is that outside of a communist fantasy or a country with massive income from natural reserves that can be taxed heavily (e.g. Saudi Arabia), a government can only create the climate for the private sector to create jobs.

Idbatterim

after a certain period, simply cut the rates to absolute subsistence, use the billions saved to create new jobs, pay down the national debt and cut income tax rates...

dasa29

Idbatterim

after a certain period, simply cut the rates to absolute subsistence, use the billions saved to create new jobs, pay down the national debt and cut income tax rates...

What savings are you talking about. I know welfare is 20billion and we have to get it down, but the 2012 report on welfare.ie says the total spend on JSB/JSA in 2012 was 4billion.

maninasia

murphaph wrote: »

In Germany people who work with their hands almost always earn a good deal less than those that primarily use their heads. It's perhaps a cultural thing but Germans seem to automatically respect engineers and scientists.

And yet a good engineer or scientist should spend lots of time working with their hands, the separation is completely artificial. What I think Germans value are the educational credentials which they love to wedge beside their name.

maninasia

creep wrote: »

Programming should definitly be an option in secondary and not just Java or something, should be exams for Oracle, PHP, C++, Networking etc so a person can take more than one of them. Allready subjects in place for science, business etc, why not Computing?

Should be equivalent to the certs you have to pay for to do. Most jobs you only specialise in one area and then after they finish school can get the professional cert. They could even start working right away!

Also maybe small bits in primary school as well because thats when the mind is developing and will get a better understanding

I imagine that computing has a unique problem with regards how quickly programming languages of the moment change. In my opinion teaching mathematics in a more interesting or flexible or in depth form would be more beneficial. Getting interested and qualified teachers to teach maths would be a start. Well it's not necessarily one or the other anyway.

maninasia

7upfree wrote: »

My hatred of that man runs very deep. But you make some excellent points.

No his points about immigrants are simply unfounded and inflammatory. Did he ask were those people were they Filipinos and how come they are working and what they are doing? Who are the 'other ethnic groups' and what's the problem with their mobile phones?

Complete rabble rousing rubbish.

SupaNova2

maninasia wrote: »

I imagine that computing has a unique problem with regards how quickly programming languages of the moment change. In my opinion teaching mathematics in a more interesting or flexible or in depth form would be more beneficial. Getting interested and qualified teachers to teach maths would be a start. Well it's not necessarily one or the other anyway.

The benefits would be great even learning something rarely used. Setting up variables, creating loops, using if and elses are common to most languages. PHP would be a good one, it's beginner friendly and it is still widely used, Yahoo, Facebook to name a couple.

imitation

jank wrote: »

At the end of the day people when young made their own life choices. Most of my friends went off to do a trade as there was plenty of work and the money was earned off the bat in year 1, meanwhile I had to go to college for 5 years and work part time to keep myself ticking over. Even at that when I finished my wage after a B.Sc and M.Sc was under 20k a year and this was in the boom! Mates of mine were raking it in with their trade. Then of course the crash comes and now who is in a better position?

The thing is most of them dont like what they are doing, they only did the trade as sure the money was good and easy. Going to college took time and the rewards were a long way off. By the way none of my friends who did a trade currently lives in Ireland, most of my friends who went to college are still there. That says a lot I think. I always liked the term 'Own the future by working the present' Instant gratification is something we need to lose.

There is very little well paid work for unskilled people now, all those jobs are in the far east. So if the choice is between mucking about in Tesco for min wage or claiming the dole then I can see why people do that. It is the easy option but they are nothing more than wasters. Cut the dole and make it an incentive to work for the min wage again.

Honestly your post has comes across like you have a bit of a chip on your shoulder, and the viewpoint is somewhat black and white. What about those who did degrees in arcitecture, that seemed a very prudent choice at the time. A degree is no guarantee that it will work out either. I work in IT and im fully prepared that at somepoint it will will have some sort of crash, nothings guaranteed in this life. I dont feel particularly smarter than my trade friends, they did what interested them, I did what interested me.

If our economy wasnt so screwed up over the last 10 years by bubbles they would have been dependable jobs with steady demand with some dips.

jank

imitation wrote: »

Honestly your post has comes across like you have a bit of a chip on your shoulder, and the viewpoint is somewhat black and white. What about those who did degrees in arcitecture, that seemed a very prudent choice at the time. A degree is no guarantee that it will work out either. I work in IT and im fully prepared that at somepoint it will will have some sort of crash, nothings guaranteed in this life. I dont feel particularly smarter than my trade friends, they did what interested them, I did what interested me.

If our economy wasnt so screwed up over the last 10 years by bubbles they would have been dependable jobs with steady demand with some dips.

The only people who have a chip on their shoulder are those who went into unsustainable boomtime industries and expected to have a long 40 year career creaming it. People eyed the money first before thinking of the future. Vast majority of people did this. Some people may like working in a trade but from the people who I speak to a lot of them want to get out even here in OZ, some even commenting that they would NEVER let their kids become a tradie.

So with the easy money gone in these jobs what does the future hold? Either re-training, emmigration or swallow the pride and work in a low unskilled job (not many people do). Lastly there is always the dole.... nuff said.

As I said people need to take responsibility for their career choices and stop blaming whoever is topic of the month. You often hear people blaming the government or the banks or the developers, which is fair enough, but you rarely if ever say, 'hand on heart I made the wrong choice x years ago to be a y tradie'.

imitation

jank wrote: »

The only people who have a chip on their shoulder are those who went into unsustainable boomtime industries and expected to have a long 40 year career creaming it. People eyed the money first before thinking of the future. Vast majority of people did this. Some people may like working in a trade but from the people who I speak to a lot of them want to get out even here in OZ, some even commenting that they would NEVER let their kids become a tradie.

So with the easy money gone in these jobs what does the future hold? Either re-training, emmigration or swallow the pride and work in a low unskilled job (not many people do). Lastly there is always the dole.... nuff said.

As I said people need to take responsibility for their career choices and stop blaming whoever is topic of the month. You often hear people blaming the government or the banks or the developers, which is fair enough, but you rarely if ever say, 'hand on heart I made the wrong choice x years ago to be a y tradie'.

Most of my friends just wanted a job, they also had to do 4 year appreniceships, often getting paid 200 quid a week for 50 hour weeks and travelling for miles. They probably thought exactly the same as yourself, they had made the right call and long term it would pay off, they certainly arent some scarface villian try to cream it. Without hindsight it wasnt a bad idea, carpenters, blockies, painters etc have been around 100s of years and there will always be some demand.

Look at the industrys throughout the decades around europe and youll see plenty of degree holding specialists who were left high and dry, like manufacturing in the 60-70s, electronics in the 80s.

jank

imitation wrote: »

Most of my friends just wanted a job, they also had to do 4 year appreniceships, often getting paid 200 quid a week for 50 hour weeks and travelling for miles. They probably thought exactly the same as yourself, they had made the right call and long term it would pay off, they certainly arent some scarface villian try to cream it. Without hindsight it wasnt a bad idea, carpenters, blockies, painters etc have been around 100s of years and there will always be some demand.

Look at the industrys throughout the decades around europe and youll see plenty of degree holding specialists who were left high and dry, like manufacturing in the 60-70s, electronics in the 80s.

The key there though was that they were getting paid to train, in college you dont get that. I am not portraying anyone like a villian (hyperbole) only that people saw the $$$ and naively ran after it. We didnt hold a gun to anyones head and make them become a tradie, there was plenty of push and pull on going on.

noodler

tayto lover wrote: »

Ha Are you mad?
The whole purpose of the exercise is to reduce wages, unemployment benefit, pensions, CB etc not to give tax breaks.
IBEC and ISME will see to that with the politicians help.
The rich must remain rich at all costs especially our costs.

FG have already said they want to reduce income tax at the earliest possible opportunity.

This will probbaly mean an increase of credits or reduction in bands rather than a reduction in rates though.

I don't mean to pick you out specifically for this but 60% of our income tax is paid by 5-10% of the highest earners (I don't have time to double check 100% but something along those lines).

The marginal rate is well over 50%. Perhaps you want a welath tax but those with properties already have to pay that, income interest is going to be paid at around 45% (incl PRSI) for wealthy deposit holders etc.

Don't get me wrong, my income range is in the 25-40k range so I am not speaking out of any self-interest - it just seems to me that nobody has been excluded from the pain.

fliball123 wrote: »

Its hard to say but you cant make a statement that its all the rich peoples fault.

tayto lover wrote: »

I didn't say it was all their fault.
I said that they have to become richer because that's what happens.
The poor suffer much more than the rich in times of recession surely.
A 20% cut to a poor person on minimum wage has much more of a devastating effect than a 20% cut to a very rich person.

Thats true. But wage cuts in the PS have been progressive (at least in Haddington Road), higher earners pay higher tax rates, higher USC, welathier property owners pay a higher percentage property tax rate than others.

Again - I don't want to sound like some sort of rich/corportate etc apologist - I could see how someone lookign at the above in isolation could get that impression.

tayto lover wrote: »

I would also like to see those responsible for the Banking scandal suffer too. 64/70 Billion was wasted on that scam.

It was a scandal but a couple of things

1) There was no costfree way of doing it. Saving AIB/BoI (IMO) was unavoidable. I just mean that to say 64bn could have been saved if alternatives were taken is wrong imo.

2) Thats the gross costs. We have gotten back 5+bn from the bank guarantee fees, 1.1bn from BoI CoCos sales last year, 1.1bn from sale of Irish Life etc. Hopefully we will get another 1.8bn from BoI this year when they buy back the preference shares.

Idbatterim

At Idbatterm

What savings are you talking about. I know welfare is 20billion and we have to get it down, but the 2012 report on welfare.ie says the total spend on JSB/JSA in 2012 was 4billion.

ok certainly the ones who can work and are choosing not to or those it doesnt pay to work. the not being worthwhile issue is for the government to sort out, then basically have a service rich and cash poor (i.e virtually non-existent) system. Note I am not saying go after the pensioners or the actual vulnerable i.e the handicapped, disabled)These would be for the serial wasters. Those that have prior contributions would be on a similar system to germany.

tayto lover

noodler wrote: »

FG have already said they want to reduce income tax at the earliest possible opportunity.

This will probbaly mean an increase of credits or reduction in bands rather than a reduction in rates though.

I don't mean to pick you out specifically for this but 60% of our income tax is paid by 5-10% of the highest earners (I don't have time to double check 100% but something along those lines).

The marginal rate is well over 50%. Perhaps you want a welath tax but those with properties already have to pay that, income interest is going to be paid at around 45% (incl PRSI) for wealthy deposit holders etc.

Don't get me wrong, my income range is in the 25-40k range so I am not speaking out of any self-interest - it just seems to me that nobody has been excluded from the pain.
Also last week I paid tax at 41%, plus all the other taxes, levies and PRSI. The middle are paying for everyone.





Thats true. But wage cuts in the PS have been progressive (at least in Haddington Road), higher earners pay higher tax rates, higher USC, welathier property owners pay a higher percentage property tax rate than others.

Again - I don't want to sound like some sort of rich/corportate etc apologist - I could see how someone lookign at the above in isolation could get that impression.




It was a scandal but a couple of things

1) There was no costfree way of doing it. Saving AIB/BoI (IMO) was unavoidable. I just mean that to say 64bn could have been saved if alternatives were taken is wrong imo.

2) Thats the gross costs. We have gotten back 5+bn from the bank guarantee fees, 1.1bn from BoI CoCos sales last year, 1.1bn from sale of Irish Life etc. Hopefully we will get another 1.8bn from BoI this year when they buy back the preference shares.

I agree with much of what you say BUT why was Anglo saved?
They were not a High Street bank by any means and only used by the rich i.e. developers, politicians, gamblers. They also lied through their teeth.
Why were never told what happened in the room on the night of the Bank guarantee?

sarumite

tayto lover wrote: »

No I never mentioned cutting the rates of dole.
Just that they should do some kind of work for it.

That is effectively cutting "Dole". The plan would require you to cut the Dole to a mere €15 per person for adults over 25 and €0 for adults under 25 and then hire the person on minimum wage for 20 hours (earning them €173).

tayto lover

sarumite wrote: »

That is effectively cutting "Dole". The plan would require you to cut the Dole to a mere €15 per person for adults over 25 and €0 for adults under 25 and then hire the person on minimum wage for 20 hours (earning them €173).

I would give them what they're getting now but require them to do some work in return.
Call it what you like but I think they would feel better for it and nobody could call them scroungers.

sarumite

tayto lover wrote: »

I would give them what they're getting now but require them to do some work in return.
Call it what you like but I think they would feel better for it and nobody could call them scroungers.

You are not giving them anything if they are under 25 and you are only giving them €15 if they are over 25. The rest of the money they will be earning themselves. It is no longer a social welfare payment, it is now a wage.

noodler

tayto lover wrote: »

I agree with much of what you say BUT why was Anglo saved?
They were not a High Street bank by any means and only used by the rich i.e. developers, politicians, gamblers. They also lied through their teeth.
Why were never told what happened in the room on the night of the Bank guarantee?

Fear. Its the only reason I can see.

What happened the night of the guarantee is no real mystery to me. AIB and BoI were in the DoF and said thy wouldn't be able to open the next day without a guarantee.

Anglo weren't there but at that stage the politicians didn't know the scope of losses and decided to include it with the guarantee in case Anglo depositors, bondholders etc getting burned would mean AIB/BoI etc wouldn't be able to borrow another cent again for years and people (not just foreign) would take their money out.

tayto lover

noodler wrote: »

Fear. Its the only reason I can see.

What happened the night of the guarantee is no real mystery to me. AIB and BoI were in the DoF and said thy wouldn't be able to open the next day without a guarantee.

Anglo weren't there but at that stage the politicians didn't know the scope of losses and decided to include it with the guarantee in case Anglo depositors, bondholders etc getting burned would mean AIB/BoI etc wouldn't be able to borrow another cent again for years and people (not just foreign) would take their money out.

Well I certainly couldn't take anything out
Neither could anyone I know.

tayto lover

sarumite wrote: »

You are not giving them anything if they are under 25 and you are only giving them €15 if they are over 25. The rest of the money they will be earning themselves. It is no longer a social welfare payment, it is now a wage.

Much the same as Jobbridge then.
I still think they should do a wee bit of work.

sarumite

tayto lover wrote: »

Much the same as Jobbridge then.
I still think they should do a wee bit of work.

Jobbridge isn't mandatory. I have no problem with the idea of employing them. However employing someone for 20 hours on minimum wage will cost the government €173 in wages. My €15 is a bit low as there could be some deductables from the €173, though overall the plan would effectively slash the dole to next to nothing and replace it with having the person work for minimum wage. It is a very free market libertarian approach to the problem.

tayto lover

tayto lover wrote: »

Well I certainly couldn't take anything out
Neither could anyone I know.

Thanks for the replies Noodler as it clears up many questions for me.

fly_agaric

noodler wrote: »

I don't mean to pick you out specifically for this but 60% of our income tax is paid by 5-10% of the highest earners (I don't have time to double check 100% but something along those lines).

The other obvious but somehow less mentioned side of that is Ireland's quite skewed income distribution [also without looking it up we are one of the more unequal European/EU countries].

So, of course the top income earners pay so much tax (and I don't think there is much prospect of it reducing alot) because:

1 ) Those at the top of the income distribution have a disproportionate amount of the money.

2 )Whatever some Fine Gael voters might desire in their heart of hearts most Irish people seem to want rich European country benefits like public health service, education system, social welfare etc.

3 )The economy is unlikely [in foreseeable future] to have another boom so large that paying for items in (2) can be done while also reducing tax.

Godge

fly_agaric wrote: »

The other obvious but somehow less mentioned side of that is Ireland's quite skewed income distribution [also without looking it up we are one of the more unequal European/EU countries].

So, of course the top income earners pay so much tax (and I don't think there is much prospect of it reducing alot) because:

1 ) Those at the top of the income distribution have a disproportionate amount of the money.

2 )Whatever some Fine Gael voters might desire in their heart of hearts most Irish people seem to want rich European country benefits like public health service, education system, social welfare etc.

3 )The economy is unlikely [in foreseeable future] to have another boom so large that paying for items in (2) can be done while also reducing tax.

Some links please......

flutered

noodler wrote: »

Fear. Its the only reason I can see.

What happened the night of the guarantee is no real mystery to me. AIB and BoI were in the DoF and said thy wouldn't be able to open the next day without a guarantee.

Anglo weren't there but at that stage the politicians didn't know the scope of losses and decided to include it with the guarantee in case Anglo depositors, bondholders etc getting burned would mean AIB/BoI etc wouldn't be able to borrow another cent again for years and people (not just foreign) would take their money out.

they all got their money back, did they not, bar the credit unions that is, the only bondholder who got burned, i cannot make sense of this, can anyone here explain this.

tayto lover

flutered wrote: »

they all got their money back, did they not, bar the credit unions that is, the only bondholder who got burned, i cannot make sense of this, can anyone here explain this.

Are you serious? Our Credit Unions lost but complete strangers were paid? If true then i'm disgusted at this.
Who decided who'd get paid?

oceanman

is that why a thousand young people on average are leaving the country every week?

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

oceanman wrote: »

is that why a thousand young people on average are leaving the country every week?

That and the fact that you can't buy alcohol in a shop after 10, get stoned legally, or marry your gay parnter; but back on topic.

7upfree

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

That and the fact that you can't buy alcohol in a shop after 10, get stoned legally, or marry your gay parnter; but back on topic.

Ah right. It has nothing to do with lies, deceit, no jobs, the crushing of the PAYE worker, and tax hikes that would make the most hardened autserists blush ? Hard to believe you posted that really.

creep

Princess Consuela Bananahammock wrote: »

That and the fact that you can't buy alcohol in a shop after 10, get stoned legally, or marry your gay parnter; but back on topic.

I hope your been sarcastic

flutered

tayto lover wrote: »

Are you serious? Our Credit Unions lost but complete strangers were paid? If true then i'm disgusted at this.
Who decided who'd get paid?

the finance minister, noonan.

tayto lover

flutered wrote: »

the finance minister, noonan.

Any link to that please?
That's just rotten considering he was a bondholder himself.

PeadarCo

flutered wrote: »

they all got their money back, did they not, bar the credit unions that is, the only bondholder who got burned, i cannot make sense of this, can anyone here explain this.

The credit unions in question were "junior" bondholders all of these were burnt. Nothing particularly new or unusual about that in an liquidation or bankruptcy situation. "Senior" bondholders were bailed out as they were viewed the same as depositors legally so hence the issue with burning them and not depositors as well. Junior bondholders didn't face this protection and were quite rightly not included in the bailout.

http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/latest-news/credit-unions-face-losing-millions-after-anglo-irish-liquidation-29070651.html

Its unfortunate that Credit Unions were involved but bondholders aren't always the faceless people/organisations some people make them out to be. As Cypriot Banks and Cyprus itself will say having dealt with the fallout of Greek bondholder burning.

It should be pointed out that Credit Unions were also bailed out as part of the overall bank bailout.

http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/credit-union-merger-will-cost-millions-in-bailout-funds-29469249.html