Why is everyone going on strike?

Bass Reeves

Gebgbegb wrote: »

well i have some vague recollection of a property thing back in mid 2000's...

Never mind, anyway back to how public sector has cost us €200bn bailout.

At present the bank bailouts are costing 40 billion in total. There is a huge misconception that it was the banks that broke the country. In reality we were spending over 55 billion and bringing in revenue of less than 35 million. That is an over spend of 20 billion a year. I cannot find the budget deficit figures for last 10 years but I think we ran up debt of nearly 100 billion in public spending not related to the banks. We had a public debt of 50-70 billion before the crisis started. we are still borrowing about 3% of our nation spend or well over 1 billion a year.

The banks were handy to blame but not all the fault. Remember all those cosy partner talks that always gave something to everyone.

PeadarCo

Gebgbegb wrote:

Never mind, anyway back to how public sector has cost us €200bn bailout.

The majority of the money borrowed since the government last ran a surplus wasn't to bail out banks but has been to finance day to day spending which includes public sector wages. The public pay increases were based on the idea that house prices would never drop. The desire and electoral benefits of satisfying the public sector in the short run meant there was no serious pressure to curb bank lending. Curbing the banks back in 2002,2003 would have meant the money for the pay increases given in the mid 00's wouldn't have been there.

There was no single cause for the crash but if the increases in the mid 00's hadn't been given there would have been less need for austerity measures assuming the government hadn't redirected that money into other areas of current spending( I know that's a massive if).

hmmm

The unions have overplayed their hands here I think. The financial demands are impossible to meet, so the government will have to fight them. The prospect of a strike by the police force of the country is beyond the pale - absolutely incredible, verging on mutiny. The unions are tripping over themselves not to be the last one to get a pay raise, but because they have all broke ranks at the same time it becomes impossible for a reasonable compromise.

Geuze

Bass Reeves wrote: »

At present the bank bailouts are costing 40 billion in total.

Note that the gross cost of the banking bailout was 63-64 bn.

mariaalice

hmmm wrote: »

The unions have overplayed their hands here I think. The financial demands are impossible to meet, so the government will have to fight them. The prospect of a strike by the police force of the country is beyond the pale - absolutely incredible, verging on mutiny. The unions are tripping over themselves not to be the last one to get a pay raise, but because they have all broke ranks at the same time it becomes impossible for a reasonable compromise.

I would say the Garda though there would have been some sort of movement before now, after all saber rattling by the Bus workers got them something, as for the teachers it hard to figure what is going on the other teacher unions have settled, I think that makes their position weaker plus teacher do no get the same sort of public support as the Garda. Its a tricky one the government has to stick to their guns with the Landsdown agreement. While I am all for unions it has to be seen that the government and not the public services unions that run the country.

sjb25

Paramedics now jumping in for a slice of the action

fliball123

The government need to face the unions down once and for all. Get the army out for covering the garda and anyone striking in other areas all perks and O.T should be cut and make their life as uncomfortable as possible. time to put the beards back in the box..This country cannot afford their outlandish claims that they were hardest hit and they should be the first in line to be given a pay rise. The commission of public sector pay should be prioritized and bench marking III should be commenced and it will bring ps pay back down to levels in line with the private sector again. They were bench marked up during the good times..Time now to do the same and shut the unions up once and for all . As they agreed to this process twice already and it cost the tax payer hundreds of billions. The unions should tell their members if they are not happy with their remuneration feel free to find a job that will pay them more in the private sector and abroad there are thousands of people who would love to have a job with job security, a gold plated pension and a pay rise no matter how awful you are at your job.

Idbatterim

I agree with everything you say Fliball, now here is the way they see it understandably...

you know what, as much as I hate the unions, they are representing their members, everyone else being paid from the public purse, is clambering for pay rises. Also, I guarantee you that the massive majority, dont see it as a piss take, they reckon they should be getting pay rises.

We then look at what a luas or bus driver is getting v say a junior nurse or guard and you really have to say, why shouldnt they fight their corner, when relatively I would argue, the other pisstakers are creaming it it. Then again, people will push for what they can get. You can go around in circles, it all comes back to weak governance.

At some stage, someone is going to have to put the foot down... You just have certain groups, mainly the young, absolutely done, to keep others in riduculous pensions and pay, mainly workers who have been there a long time... Its morally corrupt... Many of these same workers who no doubt are creaming it off, letting property or rooms to these young guards, nurses, minimum wage private sector worker, whoever I dont care.

two good articles on this farce that I will link to, in a few minutes...

Another point, €260 has just been given to hundreds of thousands of welfarers for doing nothing. To get the equivalent back as a worker, you would need to earn E52,000! If this whole pisstake is going on again, the unions and workers are fair game to go out and get whatever they can in my opinion. We have that money to send up in smoke, we have the money for pay restoration...

This coming from a self employed person!

Paramedics now jumping in for a slice of the action

yeah and its not surprsing, who feels they get paid, what they are worth?

Put it this way, if I were in a private sector company and certain areas were getting a pay rise, wouldnt you want one? The difference is, unlike the ps, we tend to operate individually, rather than collectively...

realitykeeper

"Everyone" is not going on strike but of those who are, the majority seem to be in the public sector. The "justification" tends to be that they either had their pay cut or did not receive promised pay. But these employees should never have been given the pay they were on in the first place nor should they have been promised extra pay. The people who gave them their initial higher level payments or who promised them more pay should be held to account by the state and punished, then handed over to the public sector workers with an invite to the workers to sue the individuals who gave them unsustainable pay or who promised them unrealistic levels of pay in the future.

evolving_doors

Graham wrote: »

Somewhat surprisingly that isn't the weakest justification I've ever seen for a pay rise but it's definitely in the same ballpark.

Either way, it's not particularly compelling.

Neither is your understanding of the difference between pay rise and pay restoration.. not to mention payment upon completion of an agreement.

evolving_doors

Bass Reeves wrote: »

At present the bank bailouts are costing 40 billion in total. There is a huge misconception that it was the banks that broke the country. In reality we were spending over 55 billion and bringing in revenue of less than 35 million. That is an over spend of 20 billion a year. I cannot find the budget deficit figures for last 10 years but I think we ran up debt of nearly 100 billion in public spending not related to the banks. We had a public debt of 50-70 billion before the crisis started. we are still borrowing about 3% of our nation spend or well over 1 billion a year.

The banks were handy to blame but not all the fault. Remember all those cosy partner talks that always gave something to everyone.

So it's the public sector's fault that an apprentice blocklayer could get a 110% mortgage ?
IF the banks didn't break the country then why did we nationalise them then?
Was the bailout of banks due to the public sector wages or was it because they didn't have the necessary reserves.

At one stage we had a bloke try to buy a bank.. not buy shares in a bank... but buy the whole bank.

So apart from the revisionism ... how much do you think a guard or teacher is worth? Say after 10 years of service how much would you be happy to pay a teacher?

Graham

Gebgbegb wrote: »

Neither is your understanding of the difference between pay rise and pay restoration..

My understanding is fine, I think neither are appropriate.

evolving_doors

Graham wrote: »

My understanding is fine, I think neither are appropriate.

Ever?

Graham

Gebgbegb wrote: »

Ever?

At the current time for most parts of the PS.

Fixture

Can't listen to radio news at present with all the strike talk

Geuze

Bass Reeves wrote: »

At present the bank bailouts are costing 40 billion in total. There is a huge misconception that it was the banks that broke the country. In reality we were spending over 55 billion and bringing in revenue of less than 35 million. That is an over spend of 20 billion a year. I cannot find the budget deficit figures for last 10 years but I think we ran up debt of nearly 100 billion in public spending not related to the banks. We had a public debt of 50-70 billion before the crisis started. we are still borrowing about 3% of our nation spend or well over 1 billion a year.

The banks were handy to blame but not all the fault. Remember all those cosy partner talks that always gave something to everyone.

CSO has all data.

http://www.cso.ie/en/statistics/nationalaccounts/governmentfinancestatistics/

Geuze

Gebgbegb wrote: »

So apart from the revisionism ... how much do you think a guard or teacher is worth? Say after 10 years of service how much would you be happy to pay a teacher?

45k?

Note that a recently qualified 25 year old accountant starts on 45k-48k.

Godge

fliball123 wrote: »

The government need to face the unions down once and for all. Get the army out for covering the garda and anyone striking in other areas all perks and O.T should be cut and make their life as uncomfortable as possible. time to put the beards back in the box..This country cannot afford their outlandish claims that they were hardest hit and they should be the first in line to be given a pay rise. The commission of public sector pay should be prioritized and bench marking III should be commenced and it will bring ps pay back down to levels in line with the private sector again. They were bench marked up during the good times..Time now to do the same and shut the unions up once and for all . As they agreed to this process twice already and it cost the tax payer hundreds of billions. The unions should tell their members if they are not happy with their remuneration feel free to find a job that will pay them more in the private sector and abroad there are thousands of people who would love to have a job with job security, a gold plated pension and a pay rise no matter how awful you are at your job.

If the public service was benchmarked against say a pharma company in Cork, most if not all of the public service would get a rise.

Graham

Godge wrote: »

If the public service was benchmarked against say a pharma company in Cork, most if not all of the public service would get a rise.

Are many in the PS pharma specialists?

maryishere

Godge wrote: »

If the public service was benchmarked against say a pharma company in Cork, most if not all of the public service would get a rise.

If the public service was benchmarked against say the Ford factory in Cork, (the biggest employer in Cork in the eighties ), or Dunlops,, or Waterford glass (the best paying employers in the eighties) most if not all of the public service would be unemployed now. Without pensions.

Incidentally, not all pharma jobs are well paid, a relation of mine has been working very hard in one for over 10 years, has a good third level qualification, and is paid a good few thousand less than the average public sector wage. Thats why the average industrial wage is much less than the average public sector wage.

Bass Reeves

Gebgbegb wrote: »

So it's the public sector's fault that an apprentice blocklayer could get a 110% mortgage ?
IF the banks didn't break the country then why did we nationalise them then?
Was the bailout of banks due to the public sector wages or was it because they didn't have the necessary reserves.

At one stage we had a bloke try to buy a bank.. not buy shares in a bank... but buy the whole bank.

So apart from the revisionism ... how much do you think a guard or teacher is worth? Say after 10 years of service how much would you be happy to pay a teacher?

We nationalized them because if we did not on some Thursday morning no PS, no farmer, no factory worker, no doctor could have got money out. The truth is it would not have cost 40 billion if the politicians had only guaranteed new bonds not ones already existing but hindsight is 20/20 vision. All these decisions were taken by politicians behind closed doors with the advice of bankers and dare I say it public servants so equal responsibility shared by public and private sector.

The reason the banks went bust was they were allowed to lend 90% of there money to property related investments. We based an economy on building houses to sell to ourselves to build more houses. It was a merry go round and the Government were happy as property related taxes were bringing in money to pay for everything.

The central Bank turned a blind eye, the councils were very busy rezoning land to get houses build so that more fees and levies would come in. Anybody with little cop on knew it would end in tears. However every public servant was happy bench marking 1&2 caused public service pay to soar by 40%.

When it all ended in tears everyone had to pay. The government had to cut public expenditure. It cut all public investment, it bought in the USC, property taxes, it increase charges and reduced services and entitlements but all this would have not being enough. It had to cut PS pay. It had two choices lay off 20-30% of the public service or it could cut pay and retire early some public servants to try to recover the same amount. Both the government and the unions did not have a clue of how bad thing were. Maybe we should have tried what Greece did.

My own opinion was we should have left the euro and devalued our currency by 20-30%. This would have allowed the export driven sectors to drive output like we may well see in the UK with Brexit and devalue pay of government related workers by 30%. The private sector would have seen exports rise and those that made money by exporting could have risen the wages of there workers and the multinationals as well. Inflation might have solved a lot of problems.

But all those in the PS would have suffered a virtual 30% pay cut. What is a nurse Garda or teacher worth after 10 years. Similar to what they are paid across Europe which is a lot less than here. In most other countries the difference between public and private sector pay is minimal or veering towards private sectors getting paid more. We have the reverse here.

Cookie_Monster

Geuze wrote: »

45k?

Note that a recently qualified 25 year old accountant starts on 45k-48k.

3-4 years university, plus another 3-4 years of professional exams to become qualified though, it's hardly comparable.

Jawgap

Graham wrote: »

Are many in the PS pharma specialists?

The Health Products Regulatory Authority, HIQA, Dept of Ag and NSAI have pharmaceutical people employed.

I'd also imagine the HSE has one or two as well.

cupcake queen

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

3-4 years university, plus another 3-4 years of professional exams to become qualified though, it's hardly comparable.

It takes 4-6 years to become a teacher. As well as necessitating the usual undergrad fees it now costs 12k to do a 2 year masters (previously the hdip) without which you cannot become a teacher. The starting salary for a post 2011 teacher is 31K IF they are lucky enough to secure a full time yearly contract. Half contracts or less are extremely common meaning many teachers are starting on 15k or thereabouts. It will take years of successive contracts before a teacher will reach 45k (about 11) and that's if they are fortunate enough to secure employment year after year in the same school (finding a 'permanent'job is a thing of the past, as in most sectors)

Why shouldn't someone who has saved and worked to put themselves thorough 6 years of college expect to be able to earn enough to pay rent and keep a car on the road? Why would we, as a society, not want that much for regular, working people?

blackwhite

Geuze wrote: »

45k?

Note that a recently qualified 25 year old accountant starts on 45k-48k.

A "recently qualified" accountant has to spend a minimum of 3.5 years working in a training contract on much lower than that (with the first year salaries ranging from 11-12k in provincial towns, up to 24k in the biggest firms in Dublin). They generally will have completed their degree, and often a masters, before the training contract. They also have professional exams to pass before they are qualified.

Imagine the uproar if someone suggested trainee teachers, nurses or guards should be paid 11-12k?

Vizzy

blackwhite wrote: »

A "recently qualified" accountant has to spend a minimum of 3.5 years working in a training contract on much lower than that (with the first year salaries ranging from 11-12k in provincial towns, up to 24k in the biggest firms in Dublin). They generally will have completed their degree, and often a masters, before the training contract. They also have professional exams to pass before they are qualified.

Imagine the uproar if someone suggested trainee teachers, nurses or guards should be paid 11-12k?

I think that this says more about the scandalous rates that these accountancy firms are paying than anything else.
12K per annum is only €5.76 per hour for a 40 hour week.

There must be great benefits down the line if trainee accountants are willing to work for 3.5 years at less than minimum wage before they qualify.

Bass Reeves

cupcake queen wrote: »

It takes 4-6 years to become a teacher. As well as necessitating the usual undergrad fees it now costs 12k to do a 2 year masters (previously the hdip) without which you cannot become a teacher. The starting salary for a post 2011 teacher is 31K IF they are lucky enough to secure a full time yearly contract. Half contracts or less are extremely common meaning many teachers are starting on 15k or thereabouts. It will take years of successive contracts before a teacher will reach 45k (about 11) and that's if they are fortunate enough to secure employment year after year in the same school (finding a 'permanent'job is a thing of the past, as in most sectors)

Why shouldn't someone who has saved and worked to put themselves thorough 6 years of college expect to be able to earn enough to pay rent and keep a car on the road? Why would we, as a society, not want that much for regular, working people?

The reason for this is too many people want to become teachers. From an educational point of view is it really required. Employers will do this across alot of sectors if they have loads of applicants for jobs. Teachers have other choices they can go to the UK to get a job like a lot of newley qualified engineering grads in the building sector.

This idea you can benchmark teachers against other professionals from university backgrounds. Teacher that have to work part time for the first few years are lucky enough that they still have the choice to supplement there income by working elsewhere part time or during there holidays as there hours of work are quite short. This would not be an option to loads of other professionals.

The real test if teachers are under paid is if numbers going into the profession were declining due to the upturn in the economy. This is not the case. If I qualify as a solicitor there is no onus on law firms to give me a job or to give me fulltime hours. More than likly such a qualified person will have to devil( work free gratis or at a low pay level) for 2-3 years.

As a society should we encourage people to make career decisions by paying above the economic rates for professionals that may be over qualified for the work they carry out.

Graham

Bass Reeves wrote: »

As a society should we encourage people to make career decisions by paying above the economic rates for professionals that may be over qualified for the work they carry out.

On the face of it, that sounds like a good idea. Practically, it means you have to take that extra pay from somewhere else. You've also then got the problem that you're incentivising even more people into an industry where there may not be enough opportunities.

Geuze

maryishere wrote: »

Incidentally, not all pharma jobs are well paid, a relation of mine has been working very hard in one for over 10 years, has a good third level qualification, and is paid a good few thousand less than the average public sector wage. Thats why the average industrial wage is much less than the average public sector wage.

2015 average earnings

industry = 44,168

Public Admin and Defence = 48,173

Human Health and Social Work = 35,256

Geuze

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

3-4 years university, plus another 3-4 years of professional exams to become qualified though, it's hardly comparable.

We as a society should want to attract high calibre people into teaching.

If qualified accountants, after 3yrs college + 3.5 yrs training, can start on 45-48k, then teaching needs to offer comparable salaries.

I accept that 45-48k is probably only paid to recently qualified accountants in Dublin.

I think most reasonable people would agree that teaching is a more important job/task/role/function in society than accountancy.

Yet we value it less..................

fliball123

Gebgbegb wrote: »

Neither is your understanding of the difference between pay rise and pay restoration.. not to mention payment upon completion of an agreement.

And no one in the ps seems to understand the difference between been out of financial difficulty and borrowing 2 billion to pay the bills and being over 200billion in debt. Its funny when you lads try to use simple logic to justify lunatic pay and pension levels

fliball123

Gebgbegb wrote: »

So it's the public sector's fault that an apprentice blocklayer could get a 110% mortgage ?
IF the banks didn't break the country then why did we nationalise them then?
Was the bailout of banks due to the public sector wages or was it because they didn't have the necessary reserves.

At one stage we had a bloke try to buy a bank.. not buy shares in a bank... but buy the whole bank.

So apart from the revisionism ... how much do you think a guard or teacher is worth? Say after 10 years of service how much would you be happy to pay a teacher?

This has been done to debt..40billion is the current cost of the debt attributed to the banks and this will drop further once AIB and BOI are completely sold..Now ask yourself the question out of the 206 billion (and the rest as it is growing by 2 billion this year) debt come from..Answers on the back of a post card and you must start you answer with bench marking and pay rises to the public sector. The breakdown as I have been told is 40billion for banks, 70 billion for ps pay and pensions and the other 96billion is for keeping up welfare payments.

fliball123

Godge wrote: »

If the public service was benchmarked against say a pharma company in Cork, most if not all of the public service would get a rise.

Pharma is well paid over here true but they will also have to be benchmarked against those on the minimum wage and guess what there are a hell of a lot more people working on the minimum wage than there is in the pharma sector..So like I say benchmarking III will bring the ps pay and pensions bill way way down to something the tax payer can actually afford. Also if the ps dont like this tell them to feel free to bang their C.Vs into Pfizer, Abbot, Genzyme or any of the big pharma players over here and see how they get on

fliball123

cupcake queen wrote: »

It takes 4-6 years to become a teacher. As well as necessitating the usual undergrad fees it now costs 12k to do a 2 year masters (previously the hdip) without which you cannot become a teacher. The starting salary for a post 2011 teacher is 31K IF they are lucky enough to secure a full time yearly contract. Half contracts or less are extremely common meaning many teachers are starting on 15k or thereabouts. It will take years of successive contracts before a teacher will reach 45k (about 11) and that's if they are fortunate enough to secure employment year after year in the same school (finding a 'permanent'job is a thing of the past, as in most sectors)

Why shouldn't someone who has saved and worked to put themselves thorough 6 years of college expect to be able to earn enough to pay rent and keep a car on the road? Why would we, as a society, not want that much for regular, working people?

On the flip side why should those of us pay you more out of our taxes to give you that expectation. No one owes you anything if you want to be a teacher great if you dont like the pay tough, feel free to join the private sector and get paid more. no one owes you or you cohort a damn thing

fliball123

Geuze wrote: »

We as a society should want to attract high calibre people into teaching.

If qualified accountants, after 3yrs college + 3.5 yrs training, can start on 45-48k, then teaching needs to offer comparable salaries.

I accept that 45-48k is probably only paid to recently qualified accountants in Dublin.

I think most reasonable people would agree that teaching is a more important job/task/role/function in society than accountancy.

Yet we value it less..................

no thats a bad compasion you have to take into account the employer, usually the employer of these trainee accountants has money and is not borrowing billions that is not the case with teachers.. They can go and become an accountant if they are not happy with their lot they are well paid for the work they do..End of story

Godge

Vizzy wrote: »

I think that this says more about the scandalous rates that these accountancy firms are paying than anything else.
12K per annum is only €5.76 per hour for a 40 hour week.

There must be great benefits down the line if trainee accountants are willing to work for 3.5 years at less than minimum wage before they qualify.

Well, trainee teachers work for nothing, as do trainee vets.

blackwhite

Geuze wrote: »

We as a society should want to attract high calibre people into teaching.

If qualified accountants, after 3yrs college + 3.5 yrs training, can start on 45-48k, then teaching needs to offer comparable salaries.

I accept that 45-48k is probably only paid to recently qualified accountants in Dublin.

I think most reasonable people would agree that teaching is a more important job/task/role/function in society than accountancy.

Yet we value it less..................

You can narrow the €45-48k down further to Big 4/Top 10 firms in Dublin.
Smaller and medium sized practices in Dublin wouldn't even be matching those rates.

Plus, if you were to break that down to an hourly pay rate then see if teachers are still lagging behind. Let's not forget that teachers are so fond of telling us their salary is actually based on the 9-10 months of the year that they are in school for, it's just the payment is spread over 12 months.

Godge

fliball123 wrote: »

Pharma is well paid over here true but they will also have to be benchmarked against those on the minimum wage and guess what there are a hell of a lot more people working on the minimum wage than there is in the pharma sector..So like I say benchmarking III will bring the ps pay and pensions bill way way down to something the tax payer can actually afford. Also if the ps dont like this tell them to feel free to bang their C.Vs into Pfizer, Abbot, Genzyme or any of the big pharma players over here and see how they get on

Why should the public service be benchmarked against the minimum wage?

Most minimum wage-type jobs in the public service are contracted out - cleaning, security etc.

blackwhite

Godge wrote: »

Well, trainee teachers work for nothing, as do trainee vets.

As part of their college courses.

And accountancy students who have a work experience element of their degree also do the same.

The 3.5 year training contract is the equivalent of a teacher building up the practical in-class experience needed for the H.Dip - are you trying to claim that teachers don't get paid during that?

PeadarCo

fliball123 wrote:

no thats a bad compasion you have to take into account the employer, usually the employer of these trainee accountants has money and is not borrowing billions that is not the case with teachers.. They can go and become an accountant if they are not happy with their lot they are well paid for the work they do..End of story

You also have to take account of how hard the exams are. 2 years ago for the Chartered Accountant Ireland final exams the pass rate wasn't much above 50% for example. People have to work and study at the same time . If you're not training in one of the big 5/6 firms in the country study leave isn't exactly generous and if you're in industry paid study leave can be non existent. A lot of training contracts also have provisions built in that allow a person to be fired if they fail some of their exams along the way.

Bass Reeves

Godge wrote: »

Why should the public service be benchmarked against the minimum wage?

Most minimum wage-type jobs in the public service are contracted out - cleaning, security etc.

Maybe we shoud bench mark them against stockbrokers or hedge fund managers. The reality is that it is only a small section of teachers (those represented by the ASTI) and the vote was a close run thing with less that 50% of the electrote voting that are striking over pay. The rest of the teachers in other unions relize the reality of public finances. As well this is not an industrial dispute (like the present Gardai disput is not) about more junior members but an attempt to get prefrencial treatmet for there older members over and above other PS grades,

The reason that minimun wage work was contracted out in PS area's was the inability of managment in those area's to manage those staff's expectations. Most of those staff were paid (and those that are still employed in thsi type of work in the pS still are) 1.5-2 times the private sectror equivlent without being willing to do the work. I have heard Teacher and other PS higher paid woerkins commenting how there office are now cleaner that when they had employed cleaners directly and it was ''less hassle'' as the principle stated.

newwan

It is amazing to me that people still think it's the banks that broke this country.
Some of These same people are now in severe negative equity and eating cornflakes for dinner in their 3500 sq foot Palace...
Hmm. There's something not quite right here but I can't piece it together...

Mr. teddywinkles

Jawgap wrote: »

We're running trade surpluses.....

.....our debt pile is shrinking....

...the year on year deficit has been halved in absolute terms and in relation to GDP....

....the PBSR has halved in the last year.....

....reserves are up 14% on the last year....

....tax revenues are 1.5% ahead of profile and 5.7% up year on year

.....so really, you'd have to wonder why people believe the pot is empty?

Is it not something in the region of 200 billion in debt. 85billion is bank debt if i heard correctly

Bass Reeves

Mr. teddywinkles wrote: »

Is it not something in the region of 200 billion in debt. 85billion is bank debt if i heard correctly

The figures I have are banking crisis cost 57 billion at present of which 17 billion+ will be recovered when the shares the states owes in AIB and BOI are sold. This may not all be included in the debt the state owes as some is in Nama and some may be in the NTMA Since 2008 about 80 billion is contributed by the current budget deficit over those years and is still rising by about 2 billion/year. The remainder was residiual debt that was borrowed before that time.

Geuze

Geuze

65 bn approx, of which 30 bn approx we haven't a hope of ever recovering.

fliball123

Godge wrote: »

Why should the public service be benchmarked against the minimum wage?

Most minimum wage-type jobs in the public service are contracted out - cleaning, security etc.

I was simply pointing out that a fair % of the private sector get the minimum wage and you spouted about the pharma industry which is well paid..Just pointing out that there are a hell of lot more minimum wage jobs in the private sector than pharma. Also this needs to be factored..its hardly fair to ask those on the lower wage in the private sector to pay more for the ps cohorts to have pay rises as well as pensions that these people will never be able to afford.

fliball123

Mr. teddywinkles wrote: »

Is it not something in the region of 200 billion in debt. 85billion is bank debt if i heard correctly

so bank debt is 40 billion and getting lower all the time as the price of AIB and BOI shares go up.

Charles Babbage

fliball123 wrote: »

Pharma is well paid over here true but they will also have to be benchmarked against those on the minimum wage and guess what there are a hell of a lot more people working on the minimum wage than there is in the pharma sector..

Why should a person in a state lab or a biochemistry professor be benchmarked against someone on a minimum wage rather than someone in the pharma sector who had the same skills

cupcake queen

cupcake queen wrote: »

It takes 4-6 years to become a teacher. As well as necessitating the usual undergrad fees it now costs 12k to do a 2 year masters (previously the hdip) without which you cannot become a teacher. The starting salary for a post 2011 teacher is 31K IF they are lucky enough to secure a full time yearly contract. Half contracts or less are extremely common meaning many teachers are starting on 15k or thereabouts. It will take years of successive contracts before a teacher will reach 45k (about 11) and that's if they are fortunate enough to secure employment year after year in the same school (finding a 'permanent'job is a thing of the past, as in most sectors)

Why shouldn't someone who has saved and worked to put themselves thorough 6 years of college expect to be able to earn enough to pay rent and keep a car on the road? Why would we, as a society, not want that much for regular, working people?

Oh really, lol ?


So if Tesco increased their prices by 30% - and give it to their employees - you won't go down to the nearest Aldi where prices are much cheaper ?



If Vodafone increased their prices by 40% - and give it to their employees - you wouldn't switch to Three where rates are cheaper?


You would be quite content to go to the most expensive supplier so that the workers there can enjoy wages beyond what market forces and competition determines, "just because"?

I would doubt it very much.