Taken from the Public Sector Attitudes thread.
I'm not taking a pop at Fergus Finaly. I like Fergus Finlay, he does some really good and important work with Bernardos, but when people write Opinion peices in newspapers they gotta get their facts straight.
Maybe people would like to use this as noticeboard of mainstream news articles where FACTUAL errors have been made.
Here again is the orginal quote. I haven't misrepresnted or paraphrased Fergus in any way shape or form.
When you're in the business of opinion forming you gotta be able to back up what you say.
I'm not taking a pop at Fergus Finaly. I like Fergus Finlay, he does some really good and important work with Bernardos, but when people write Opinion peices in newspapers they gotta get their facts straight.
Maybe people would like to use this as noticeboard of mainstream news articles where FACTUAL errors have been made.
LMAO.Absolutely. But who's to say that that's what he meant. Are you Fergus Finlay?
Well, it was pretty obvious to anyone else I know who read the article that that is what he meant. Obviously, you'd rather believe he's making stuff up.
All you gotta do is point me at a link. I'm not so biased in my opinions that I can't admit I'm wrong. Where has this been stated? Is it a widely held view?
It is Fergus Finlay who said he's seen/heard these figures quoted. You seem to be accusing him of lying on the basis that you have not heard any misrepresentation yourself. That is the point I am making.
Here again is the orginal quote. I haven't misrepresnted or paraphrased Fergus in any way shape or form.
You may know what Fergus meant but the article isn't aimed at you. It's an opinion piece, by definition the aim is to form opinion. Fergus makes an unsubstantiated point that people are misrepresnting PS wages as a percentage of overall numbers and then 1 line later makes, what I can only assume, to be a glaring mistake in his own figures. (A 3 Euro saving is a 3 Euro saving no matter what way you look at it (before tax).)When they’re talking about public spending, commentators seem to use whatever figure comes into their heads. I’ve heard it solemnly reported on the radio that public service pay accounts for proportions of spending ranging from 50% to 75%. There’s a mantra about it — "it’s simply impossible to cut public spending (and thereby save the economy is the inference) without cutting pay because pay simply accounts for too much".
The actual figure is about one-third. Public service pay is about one-third of public spending. So every €3 you take off a public servant should give you about €1 in public spending cuts.
When you're in the business of opinion forming you gotta be able to back up what you say.