Tax USC cuts and or Public sector pay

Charles Babbage

fliball123 wrote: »

Sorry last I checked we were borrowing 2 billion this year and we are 206billion in debt..We have to pay that off so how are we out of reason why you guys got a pay cut?

Current borrowing is because money has been given away to buy votes. Overall borrowing is everyone's responsibility to pay back, not just some people.

So longer term where in the years between 2000 and 2007 ps pay and penisions more than doubled? yeah your talking absolute waffle

everyone's pay is higher than 2000. Try harder, this is supposed to be a serious forum.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage wrote: »

You then decide the level of service you want and the taxes required for that. In Ireland, people, such as the OP, seem to regard all these things as independent, that you fix PS pay rates based on some bull**** about such people having to work for nothing or some politically derived figure because the government employs them, then you decide to have world class services, but not to pay for them.

The sad thing is that after a great recession, people seem to have learned nothing and seem proud to have learned nothing.

I'm sorry but this is seriously indicative of the problems people have with public sector pay increases - the idea that they are, or will be, somehow reflected in an improvement of services. If you are making €10 an hour and that goes up to €11, the service stays exactly the same. If we take that 1 euro pay rise and instead add one worker for every 10 we have (pensions etc, I know..) then we have an increase in service. Pay rises mean we're just paying more for the same service.

If there's Gardai complaining they can't do their job because of a lack of equipment, how does a pay rise solve that? It simply takes money away from being able to supply the necessary equipment, or manpower, or training, or whatever else will actually improve service for the end user.

fliball123

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Current borrowing is because money has been given away to buy votes. Overall borrowing is everyone's responsibility to pay back, not just some people.



everyone's pay is higher than 2000. Try harder, this is supposed to be a serious forum.

So having to pay for a ps pay and pensions bill along with a spiraling welfare bill over the last decade and half which put us into about 150 billion in debt is my responsibility? how so?. I never voted for this or for that shower of Cretans and that was Ahern and FF buying votes for the different blocks as in the ps and those on welfare..The problem is now what has been given is hard to take away.

Try harder to do what the data is there to back up what I am saying the decade preceding the bust Ahearn more than doubled ps pay and pensions as well as welfare and at a speed that far out paced inflation and just about every other country in the world.

Also the private sector did not go up at the same rate during the same period. Back before Ahearn greesed the wheels things like "job for life" and "gold plated pensions" for the ps were because they were supposed to not earn the same as their private sector counter part. Yet by all measures now PS are paid significantly more than the private sector counter parts.

benchmarking III should be entered withe the ps measured against the private sector and some people will get a payrise in the ps but the majority would be cut to shreds.

I await your "but you cant compare the 2"..Yet it was done twice during benchmarking and then the evidence of benchmarking was shredded and torched by fire at midnight on all hallows eve, you couldn't make it up.

FF and Ahearn managed through buying votes to throw our income tax payers under the bus.

So dont blame me I never voted for them and yet Bertie is still there walking in the sunset with a couple of pensions and body guards and car all provided by the unwashed masses

Also you compare how the private sector dealt with the crash 1/4 companies in Ireland went to the wall in that period not to mention other people getting pay cuts. What happened in the ps..?

They took a small pay cut and then were asked to pay a contribution to a defined benefit which those of us in the real world could only dream off. They then asked throughout the dream land that is the ps to leave politely and given a golden handshake if they did, and a lot rehired on higher (off books) contract rates. No one even bothered filtering who was offered the golden handshakes and all the while between 2008 and 2013 5 years of ps pay increments continued.

We now find ourselves in a predicament that areas like health due to Ahearn 80 to 85% of the monies spent in that area is ringfenced for pay and pensions leaving feck all for the actual service.

Same with education but the % is a little bit lower. (75%)

We are paying out over 20billion a year in welfare

So you will excuse me you if I think that the feather touch approach taken with the ps that has us now at the mercy of the bearded unions who cry poverty for their members from behind their platinum ladened fingers and will strike because they think they were the hardest done by or from the lefties who wont be happy until the poor have more than those working, and all the while neather group has come no where near the pain of what those in the private sector who have worked over the last 15 years have had to deal with

FreudianSlippers

mhge wrote: »

Or someone who pays double childcare. Get real.

Maybe people shouldn't have children they can't afford?

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

Charles Babbage

Sergio Georgini wrote: »

I'm sorry but this is seriously indicative of the problems people have with public sector pay increases - the idea that they are, or will be, somehow reflected in an improvement of services. If you are making 10 an hour and that goes up to 11, the service stays exactly the same. If we take that 1 euro pay rise and instead add one worker for every 10 we have (pensions etc, I know..) then we have an increase in service. Pay rises mean we're just paying more for the same service.

Of course you are paying more for the same service. People are not paid the same as they were in 1900. Once my dad could get a haircut for 5/, now it costs 11. Pretending that barbers should earn only 1980 rates or 2000 rates because their service is similar is complete and utter nonsense.

If there's Gardai complaining they can't do their job because of a lack of equipment, how does a pay rise solve that? It simply takes money away from being able to supply the necessary equipment, or manpower, or training, or whatever else will actually improve service for the end user.

People should both be equipped and paid, these things are not mutually exclusive.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Of course you are paying more for the same service.

So why are you implying the opposite?

Charles Babbage wrote: »

People are not paid the same as they were in 1900.

Correct...?

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Once my dad could get a haircut for 5/, now it costs 11.

And I pay 25 - what's your point? That's a choice. I can't remember the last time the barbers went on strike for higher prices, explains why everyone had such awful hair in the 70s though.

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Pretending that barbers should earn only 1980 rates or 2000 rates because their service is similar is complete and utter nonsense.

Barbers earnings arent automatically taken out of your pay packet. What a barber earns is of no interest to anyone else, because nobody is forcing anyone to support a barber.

Charles Babbage wrote: »

People should both be equipped and paid, these things are not mutually exclusive.

And if there isn't money for both? Which do we choose?


I see the Gardai are next out on strike. An illegal one to boot. So we can hear nothing but waffle about basic pay, while forgetting to mention rent allowance, pension contributions and all the other cash that tops up that basic pay.

And they'll get their pay rise, and then they'll turn around and say "well, we can't stop crime because we don't have the resources."

The same applies to nurses and teachers too.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage wrote: »

Of course you are paying more for the same service. People are not paid the same as they were in 1900. Once my dad could get a haircut for 5/, now it costs 11. Pretending that barbers should earn only 1980 rates or 2000 rates because their service is similar is complete and utter nonsense.

Inflation is close to 0%. In a low/no inflation world, your wage packet does not need to change for you to earn the same standard of living.

The 1980s barber to the 2000 barber and beyond had large inflationary pressures to compete with, and so the price of labour has to rise just for people to stand still.

Charles Babbage

Sergio Georgini wrote: »

Barbers earnings arent automatically taken out of your pay packet. What a barber earns is of no interest to anyone else, because nobody is forcing anyone to support a barber.

We should privatise law enforcement, then I could patronise the 11 gardai and you could use the 25 gardai, or we could just sort things ourselves as we have a choice.

Sergio Georgini wrote: »

And they'll get their pay rise, and then they'll turn around and say "well, we can't stop crime because we don't have the resources."

The same applies to nurses and teachers too.

So health should be funded by nurses, education by teachers and the army should work for nothing so they can buy a gun.

Deleted User wrote: »

Inflation is close to 0%. In a low/no inflation world, your wage packet does not need to change for you to earn the same standard of living.

I agree, although many people are getting increases,the rate og wage increase in a growing economy exceeds the rate of inflation. The issue is not so much increases, as the removal of pay cuts, introduced when there was harder times, which are now being continued for political advantage, not because economic conditions remain the same.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage wrote: »

I agree, although many people are getting increases,the rate og wage increase in a growing economy exceeds the rate of inflation. The issue is not so much increases, as the removal of pay cuts, introduced when there was harder times, which are now being continued for political advantage, not because economic conditions remain the same.

=> Because other people are getting pay increase (vague 'many people' - who might indeed be improving productivity / profitability etc), the public sector should also get pay increases.

Is that really the logic?

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage wrote: »

We should privatise law enforcement, then I could patronise the 11 gardai and you could use the 25 gardai, or we could just sort things ourselves as we have a choice.



So health should be funded by nurses, education by teachers and the army should work for nothing so they can buy a gun.

So we can either continue to pump every cent into wages while the infrastructure supporting those roles crumbles to pieces, or nurses and teachers and the army can pay for equipment themselves?

What?

It's like debating with a 4 year old. Stop acting like a mild suggestion, such as looking at how exactly our resources are being divided in a way that wages are leaving no room for infrastructure and equipment, is some kind of ludicrous attack on the public service.

I wouldn't even consider myself a critic of the PS, I feel like my position is perfectly rational. We can't keep bemoaning the quality and lack of services in this country, when as soon as there is a millimeter of wiggle room you guys are asking for an inch, and it's all to go on pay increases. It's ridiculous.

fliball123

Deleted User wrote: »

=> Because other people are getting pay increase (vague 'many people' - who might indeed be improving productivity / profitability etc), the public sector should also get pay increases.

Is that really the logic?

Why should you get a payrise you need to take into account your employer is borrowing 2 billion this year to keep the lights on and pay rises ala increments have not stopped even during the worse case back in 2008 - 2012

Charles Babbage

Deleted User wrote: »

=> Because other people are getting pay increase (vague 'many people' - who might indeed be improving productivity / profitability etc), the public sector should also get pay increases.

Is that really the logic?

No, that is not the logic, but a distortion of it. These widespread increases, for people who never had cuts in many cases, are an indication that the unusual conditions that led to the PS pay cuts have ended, and so should the pay cuts. There is a lot of two faced logic here, economy goes down then PS pay should go down, but when the economy comes back up the opposite is doesn't seem to be true.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage wrote: »

No, that is not the logic, but a distortion of it.

Could you please review your previous post which mentioned 'many people getting increases' and explain what it has to do with the subject in that case?

Inflation is close to 0%. Even without those other people's increased wages. What does Mark down the road's pay have to do with yours exactly?

Charles Babbage wrote: »

These widespread increases, for people who never had cuts in many cases....

Clarification of 'widespread increases' please?

Charles Babbage wrote: »

...are an indication that the unusual conditions that led to the PS pay cuts have ended, and so should the pay cuts.

Some assertion. The Government is still running a deficit, and inflation is close to 0%. There is no evidence anywhere in what you have said that anyone is entitled to a pay increase.

Bertie's pay scales weren't the norm, they shouldn't be returned to, and realistically they can't be. Stop considering the pay scales now as a 'cut' from them. They were just as much a bubble as the housing market was.

Charles Babbage wrote: »

There is a lot of two faced logic here, economy goes down then PS pay should go down, but when the economy comes back up the opposite is doesn't seem to be true.

The logic is simple. Pay people what they are worth. You are the one asserting that public sector's workers' worth is 'economy backed'.

Charles Babbage

Deleted User wrote: »

The logic is simple. Pay people what they are worth. You are the one asserting that public sector's workers' worth is 'economy backed'.

I agree. But this thread has no reference about what people are worth, only that if they happen to work in the PS that they are somehow inferior and should longer entitled to expect to be paid the going rate and that they should reduce their wages to pay for their own equipment. (This will probably be followed by some snide comment that they should just go somewhere else, but as the vacancies in the hospitals and the declining ranking of universities show, they are)

And pretending there are no increases is obtuse.

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage wrote: »

I agree. But this thread has no reference about what people are worth, only that if they happen to work in the PS that they are somehow inferior and should longer entitled to expect to be paid the going rate and that they should reduce their wages to pay for their own equipment. (This will probably be followed by some snide comment that they should just go somewhere else, but as the vacancies in the hospitals and the declining ranking of universities show, they are)

Could you quote a single post that reads like this please? If not you'll have to accept that your projections aren't based on what's been said in the thread.

Charles Babbage wrote: »

And pretending there are no increases is obtuse.

I'll ask again the relevance

Deleted User wrote: »

Inflation is close to 0%. Even without those other people's increased wages. What does Mark down the road's pay have to do with yours exactly?

So far, the only underlying reasons that you yourself have suggested for Public Sector pay increases are

• The pay used to be better
• Other people are getting pay increases

Do you think that either of those are factors that have been part of any of the increase in the private sectors that we can see from this chart?

Do you believe that those increases in the other sectors are based on anyone else's wage increases? Or do they each have underlying reasons for the increase?

Do you have any legitimate reasons to push for public sector pay increases?

Charles Babbage

Charles Babbage wrote: »

I agree. But this thread has no reference about what people are worth, only that if they happen to work in the PS that they are somehow inferior and should longer entitled to expect to be paid the going rate and that they should reduce their wages to pay for their own equipment.

I'm not even going to bother with that shockingly misrepresentative graph. If that's your evidence, then i despair. Show us one that actually takes the amount of earnings into account, not "percentage increase" within industries that were decimated during the crash. Here's the CSO statistics where you can actually compare pay between public and private sectors: http://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Statire/SelectVarVal/Define.asp?maintable=EHQ08

I want to ask you about this mythical "going rate" you keep mentioning. Our public servants are in the top 5, or very close to the top 5, in terms of average salary in the world. And that's AFTER the cuts.

Gardai, nurses, teachers all earn way above what they would earn in the vast majority of other countries. If we were to apply your logic, and give the PS the "going rate", there would be CUTS across the board, not pay rises.

fliball123

Sergio Georgini wrote: »

I'm not even going to bother with that shockingly misrepresentative graph. If that's your evidence, then i despair. Show us one that actually takes the amount of earnings into account, not "percentage increase" within industries that were decimated during the crash. Here's the CSO statistics where you can actually compare pay between public and private sectors: http://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Statire/SelectVarVal/Define.asp?maintable=EHQ08

I want to ask you about this mythical "going rate" you keep mentioning. Our public servants are in the top 5, or very close to the top 5, in terms of average salary in the world. And that's AFTER the cuts.

Gardai, nurses, teachers all earn way above what they would earn in the vast majority of other countries. If we were to apply your logic, and give the PS the "going rate", there would be CUTS across the board, not pay rises.

The general public should be looking for tax cuts that would bring everyone up, but the ps and semi state piggies think its their trough and no one else can have a bite. Its a joke

Letree

If the semi states and the guards get a good deal then the rest of the public service / civil service should be looking for a similar deal.

glacial_pace71

Sergio Georgini wrote: »

I'm not even going to bother with that shockingly misrepresentative graph. If that's your evidence, then i despair. Show us one that actually takes the amount of earnings into account, not "percentage increase" within industries that were decimated during the crash. Here's the CSO statistics where you can actually compare pay between public and private sectors: http://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Statire/SelectVarVal/Define.asp?maintable=EHQ08

I want to ask you about this mythical "going rate" you keep mentioning. Our public servants are in the top 5, or very close to the top 5, in terms of average salary in the world. And that's AFTER the cuts.

Gardai, nurses, teachers all earn way above what they would earn in the vast majority of other countries. If we were to apply your logic, and give the PS the "going rate", there would be CUTS across the board, not pay rises.

That's quite misleading: you can drill down into the figures if you really wanted to.
http://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Statire/SelectVarVal/Define.asp?maintable=EHQ04&PLanguage=0

If you looked by reference to NACE classification the public sector earnings continue to fall. Further, you need to adjust by reference to qualifications, experience and other socio-economic profiling before you get a comparable sectoral like-for-like comparison. Not to mention that you seem to have ignored the hours worked by sector, which is available in the CSO link you yourself supplied.

Also, civil servants - and public servants generally - are subject to a PRD levy, which currently averages about 8%. It's also close to €1 billion, levied on just 300,000 taxpayers. Plenty of stats if you really wanted to look at public sector earnings:
http://databank.per.gov.ie/Expenditure.aspx?rep=NetVA

This thread is predicated upon a presumption that there'd be tax/USC cuts or public sector pay increases. In respect of the latter there's still a 12-15% cut in place, i.e. it's not a budgetary matter. I think some people are looking at the promise of extra Gardaí, nurses, teachers etc (which will still fall short of the population increase of the State since the census) and the costs associated with these, i.e. an increase in the overall payroll bill, as meaning an increase in pay.

Re the mention of the Gardaí deciding upon the GRA's ritual seppuku? The problem for the Government is in claiming that Lansdowne Road is a 'negotiating mechanism' it has left itself stuck with ... negotiations. Lansdowne was a fig leaf to allow for the continuation of Haddington Road cutbacks, but by allowing for firefighters and teachers to get some cuts reversed (and then slapping a Lansdowne Road label on it) the Government are jeopardising the FEMPI legislation itself. What happens if they move to prosecute Gardaí and the financial emergency legislation is lost? Poor strategic approach by FG to the matter.

(However, some in FG thought that their Collins Institute 'brainwave' of a Public Sector Pay Commission would solve their problems: it's now clear that they've to backtrack even at this early stage. Already they'd have to take the position that if the Commission recommends reversal of pay cuts, shift allowances etc then the Government won't accept the outcome but if the Commission recommends anything to do with a productivity measure or related matters that aren't quite within the Commission's remit then the Government would accept these. Bizarre).

draiochtanois

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Jawgap

Sergio Georgini wrote: »

.......

I want to ask you about this mythical "going rate" you keep mentioning. Our public servants are in the top 5, or very close to the top 5, in terms of average salary in the world. And that's AFTER the cuts.

.......

Except the PS is not an homogeneous body of staff and using crude metrics such as mean wages misses out a lot of detail.

On average the PS may be well paid, but if they are then why is it so difficult to fill certain vacancies?

Fact is, general admin work in the PS may be well paid but technical positions are not, and unlike the private sector, no premium is paid for experience - whatever your background or experience you start at point 1 on the salary scale regardless of whether you're fresh out of university or have 15 years of relevant experience (and contacts) under your belt.

In my own case I left the PS when my salary dropped below the 40th percentile for my profession (as others progressed) - I figured at that point I was just being a mug accepting that as well as foregoing all the other benefits that private sector firms can offer, but the public sector can't (and shouldn't).

Likewise, my wife worked in the PS for a number of years, left and has been working privately since - a couple of years ago she played with the idea of going back and applied for a job in her old area......despite having more experience since she left and having picked up an advanced qualification along the way she was told she'd have to go back to the start of the salary scale......needless to say she declined.

Letree

fliball123 wrote: »

Why should you get a payrise you need to take into account your employer is borrowing 2 billion this year to keep the lights on and pay rises ala increments have not stopped even during the worse case back in 2008 - 2012

Its not really payrises anyway its pay restoration at this stage and there is a bit to go yet.

draiochtanois

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Godge

draiochtanois wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

Why is that question relevant to the debate?

It could be argued that every private sector employee has a vested interest in doing down the public service as that would reduce their taxes, so there is nobody who doesn't have skin in the game.

Some, like me, have skin on both sides. I have a preserved public service pension which I want preserved, but would love my current income taxes to come down.

quadrifoglio verde

Letree wrote: »

Its not really payrises anyway its pay restoration at this stage and there is a bit to go yet.

It's pay restoration to a rate that was shown to be unsustainable

glacial_pace71

quadrifoglio verde wrote: »

It's pay restoration to a rate that was shown to be unsustainable

It was a €17 billion pay bill in 2009. It's currently around the €15 billion mark. Hardly unsustainable. More interesting will be the prospect of 'grade inflation' in certain sectors of the public service, e.g. if you can't get anyone as 'third assistant dishwasher' you end up advertising it as a regraded post at 'third assistant diswasher with epaulettes'.

Take the curious example of graduate recruitment. The graduate entry Administrative Officer (AO) rate was cut several times. However, some graduates entered at Clerical Officer or Executive Officer level. They're now eligible for entering the latest interdepartmental competitions for Higher Executive Officer (HEO). Traditionally the HEO was an office manager and the AO was involved in policy work, but both roles have become interchangeable. However, the HEO is much better paid for the first few points on the payscale. Unsurprisingly, several AOs tried to enter the competition for the better-paid job but were told "sorry, you're already at that grade-equivalent", even if they're paid perhaps €10k per annum less.

The €65k threshold for certain cuts has also created numerous anomalies.

draiochtanois

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