# RTE frontline show: Teachers good ,bad ,indifferent?



## thedaras (19 Apr 2011)

Any see this programme tonight?
If so,what are your views?


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## Shawady (19 Apr 2011)

I didn't see the programme but as this is my first year to have a child going to school I am surprised at the amount of holidays they receive. This is not an anti-teacher rant. I just think in this day and age when both partners in a couple work, the amount of time the kids are off doesn't help.
In our school, they have two mid terms (one week each) and two weeks off at christmas and easter. That's 6 weeks off not including the sumer holidays. I would like to see 2 or 3 weeks knocked off that.


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## zztop (19 Apr 2011)

Pat K played the schoolmaster but overall I would say
the teachers acquitted themselves well.Probably a lot
more intelligence there than our politicans.....but arent
a lot of politicans teachers anyway:-


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## liaconn (19 Apr 2011)

Shawady said:


> I didn't see the programme but as this is my first year to have a child going to school I am surprised at the amount of holidays they receive. This is not an anti-teacher rant. I just think in this day and age when both partners in a couple work, the amount of time the kids are off doesn't help.


 
In fairness, teachers aren't there to babysit the kids for working parents. If you feel the school year is too short for the children then that's a fair point, but not the fact that school holidays are inconvenient for childminding arrangements


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## RoyRover (19 Apr 2011)

According to Wikipedia:

"The academic term [in Ireland] usually lasts for a minimum of 183 days in primary schools and about 168 days in secondary schools."

This puts our school year well behind many emerging economies.

What amazes me is the number of half-days my kids get, completely unannounced, and the school expects hardworking parents to pick up the slack from them.

As for accountability, I think what Pat (sort of) showed was that teachers are virtually unaccountable.

A great teacher should be paid very well indeed, but the unions constantly kick and scream against any form of open performance related pay.

Sad for both the good teachers, and for the students of poor teachers. And, as so often in Ireland, it is the hard pressed private sector worker and the small businessman who is left to foot the bill.

Any one remember Sen Joe O'Toole and his sneering attitude towards taxpayers?


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## liaconn (19 Apr 2011)

Really?? Public Sector workers don't pay any taxes?

I agree with the main thrust of your post. Unions should not be protecting under performers at the expense of the people who actually want to do a good job.


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## Chris (19 Apr 2011)

liaconn said:


> Really?? Public Sector workers don't pay any taxes?


Technically no. The taxes that publicly employed people pay come from the tax pool in the first place. This means that from an accounting point of view they do not increase the tax pool.



liaconn said:


> I agree with the main thrust of your post. Unions should not be protecting under performers at the expense of the people who actually want to do a good job.



I had this discussion with a teacher a while back, who said it would be impossible to make fair judgments because classes can be so different. Where I agree is that you cannot base teachers performance simply on average class performance. But this does not mean that a school principle cannot grade a teachers performance taking into account the difficulty of the class. 
The company I work for reviews my performance every quarter. This review takes into account the complexity of the project, the experience of colleagues and how cooperative other project teams are. It is largely subjective, and I have to make my case at review time, but this does not mean that outside influenced beyond my control necessarily have an impact on my review. I simply do not see why this would not be possible for teachers, resulting in performance based pay.


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## liaconn (19 Apr 2011)

Chris said:


> Technically no. The taxes that publicly employed people pay come from the tax pool in the first place. This means that from an accounting point of view they do not increase the tax pool..


 
But in reality, Yes, we pay taxes.


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## liaconn (19 Apr 2011)

Chris said:


> Technically no. The taxes that publicly employed people pay come from the tax pool in the first place. This means that from an accounting point of view they do not increase the tax pool.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


 
What I was talking about here was situations where unions (for teachers or others) come in and protect a worker who is quite clearly not fit for the job and is as much a source of annoyance to their colleagues as to management. It undermines everyone and the whole concept of unions.


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## Shawady (19 Apr 2011)

liaconn said:


> In fairness, teachers aren't there to babysit the kids for working parents. If you feel the school year is too short for the children then that's a fair point, but not the fact that school holidays are inconvenient for childminding arrangements


 
I haven't the link but it was reported recently that we have fallen behind in education, particularly maths and reading so having children in school and extra couple of weeks a year can only be a good thing IMO. Certainly 4 one week breaks on top of the 9 weeks summer holidays is plenty for primary schools.
The fact remains, there are many families that have both parents working compared to 20 or 30 years ago. I don't see what's wrong with reforming the school year if it benefits both children and parents.


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## liaconn (19 Apr 2011)

No problem with it being reformed for the benefit of children and I would definitely think our secondary school summer holidays are way way too long. 
I would have a problem with children being kept in school longer than necessary simply to save parents the cost and hassle of childminders. That is not the school's problem.


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## Shawady (19 Apr 2011)

Chris said:


> Technically no. The taxes that publicly employed people pay come from the tax pool in the first place. This means that from an accounting point of view they do not increase the tax pool.


 
Thats true but you rarely see the point made the other way i.e. that increases in taxes also reduces the net cost of the public sector wage bill.
This is one of the big failures by the public sector unions IMO. At the start of this crisis everyone was talking about a wage bill of 20 billion. The pension levy, pay cut, income levy, increase in tax and universal social charges must have saved the net cost of the PS wage bill by billions.
The unions should be able to find out what the net cost of the PS wage bill is to the exchequer after all taxes and prsi are taken out. I suspect it would be significantly less than the social welfare bill yet it receives most of the focus.


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## csirl (19 Apr 2011)

Chris said:


> Technically no. The taxes that publicly employed people pay come from the tax pool in the first place. This means that from an accounting point of view they do not increase the tax pool.


 
You could say the same about all employees of private sector companies who rely on state contracts/funding so its an irrelevent argument.



> I had this discussion with a teacher a while back, who said it would be impossible to make fair judgments because classes can be so different. Where I agree is that you cannot base teachers performance simply on average class performance. But this does not mean that a school principle cannot grade a teachers performance taking into account the difficulty of the class.
> The company I work for reviews my performance every quarter. This review takes into account the complexity of the project, the experience of colleagues and how cooperative other project teams are. It is largely subjective, and I have to make my case at review time, but this does not mean that outside influenced beyond my control necessarily have an impact on my review. I simply do not see why this would not be possible for teachers, resulting in performance based pay.


 
I do agree that teachers can be performance reviewed. And there are some instances whereby the performance is clearly below par - such as those teachers who are frequently late for work, absent for work for frivilous reasons etc. Most schools have a couple of teachers who seem to be always out or late.


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## Complainer (19 Apr 2011)

It's very hard to take lecturing about value for money or extended holidays from Pat Kenny or Marian Finucane or any of the other RTE heads. Pots and black kettles spring to mind.


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## Firefly (19 Apr 2011)

Chris said:


> I had this discussion with a teacher a while back, who said it would be impossible to make fair judgments because classes can be so different. Where I agree is that you cannot base teachers performance simply on average class performance. But this does not mean that a school principle cannot grade a teachers performance taking into account the difficulty of the class.
> The company I work for reviews my performance every quarter. This review takes into account the complexity of the project, the experience of colleagues and how cooperative other project teams are. It is largely subjective, and I have to make my case at review time, but this does not mean that outside influenced beyond my control necessarily have an impact on my review. I simply do not see why this would not be possible for teachers, resulting in performance based pay.



Whilst I wouln't condone the use of sites like ratemyteacher for official teacher performance reviews, I had a look at my own school recently. Interesting to note that the good teachers we had then were rated highly still and the poor ones rated poorly. It is circa 17 years since I attended the school so the teachers don't have appeared to have changed much. Perhaps the real customers here (the pupils) should have some say in the performance review?


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## Complainer (19 Apr 2011)

Firefly said:


> Perhaps the real customers here (the pupils) should have some say in the performance review?


I read something about this happening as part of the Dept's inspections now - not sure if it was a pilot or for all inspections.


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## Firefly (19 Apr 2011)

Complainer said:


> I read something about this happening as part of the Dept's inspections now - not sure if it was a pilot or for all inspections.



Sounds good. There would be obvious difficulties with some pupils having favourite teachers and others they can't stand, but if the sample was large enough and the questions very clear it could be good.


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## JP1234 (19 Apr 2011)

I have tried twice to watch the show on the RTE website but it cuts out after 15 minutes. 

Both ex-students they spoke to said they felt their education was excellent but one did point out there needed to be some kind of teacher assessment and unfortunately the headteachers do not seem to have that kind of authority. 

It was interesting when they were talking about teaching of Maths. My son has always loved maths and it was his strongest subject until he got into 3rd year when his grades dived and he said he hated it. After meeting his teacher we understood why. She was a nightmare. Our first encounter with her was when we were at the school on a separate matter and she started screeching at us in the reception area, that our son was not working hard enough, was going to be a failure etc.  We later found out that this was a common practice for her, to humiliate students and parents publicly, there were numerous complaints about her attitude and teaching standards, yet there seemed to be no way of sanctioning her. She is still there, still hearing the same complaints about her.

It's a huge shame, that as my son approaches the end of his state education she is the only example of a truly bad teacher I have seen yet it seems she will be there until she retires. We know a couple of teachers at the school socially and they too despair of her.

Despite this my son is doing well in HC Maths and was able to put it behind him.


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## Lex Foutish (20 Apr 2011)

RoyRover said:


> According to Wikipedia:
> 
> "The academic term [in Ireland] usually lasts for a minimum of 183 days in primary schools and about 168 days in secondary schools."
> 
> ...


 


What amazes me, Roy, is that nobody picked you up on the bold print in your quote above. It's absolutely daft to suggest that any school can, at the drop of a hat, grant kids a half day without informing parents in advance. Wouldn't the school have a duty of care and have to supervise the children who weren't collected by their parents? Couldn't they be sued if anything happened to the kids on their way home before official school closing time, if parents hadn't been informed? I couldn't see any school leaving themselves open to that.

How many un-announced half days have your kids had so far this year? Sonds like they've had quite a few! I certainly wouldn't accept such carry on from my children's schools. If it did happen, I'd go straight to the board of management or the Dept. of Education. And I think I'd move them to another school.

And can you remind us about what Sen. Joe O' Toole did or said. I can't recall. I do remember the ATM machine comment and Morning Ireland having to abandon an interview with him after the interviewer couldn't stop laughing when Sen. O' Toole said that some cost saving exercise, that the Dept. of Education was engaged in, was like a car owner selling the spare wheel to buy petrol.





Shawady said:


> *I haven't the link but it was reported recently that we have fallen behind in education, particularly maths and reading so having children in school* and extra couple of weeks a year can only be a good thing IMO. Certainly 4 one week breaks on top of the 9 weeks summer holidays is plenty for primary schools.
> The fact remains, there are many families that have both parents working compared to 20 or 30 years ago. I don't see what's wrong with reforming the school year if it benefits both children and parents.


 


Yes, [broken link removed] came out a few weeks ago. Apparently the Department of Education are looking at curriculum overload and thinking about a change of emphasis, in favour of maths, literacy and science.





csirl said:


> You could say the same about all employees of private sector companies who rely on state contracts/funding so its an irrelevent argument.
> 
> 
> 
> I do agree that teachers can be performance reviewed. And there are some instances whereby the performance is clearly below par - such as those teachers who are frequently late for work, absent for work for frivilous reasons etc. *Most schools have a couple of teachers who seem to be always out or late*.


 


Thankfully, The Depths was never a place for sweeping statements! 





Firefly said:


> Sounds good. There would be obvious difficulties with some pupils having favourite teachers and others they can't stand, but if the sample was large enough and the questions very clear it could be good.


 


I reckon that an awful lot of teachers will be doing 3 or 4 hours of P.E. every day, Firefly, to the detriment of theorems, Peig, Shakespeare and the conjugation of Latin verbs......... not to mention cutting back drastically on the old homework!


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## cork (20 Apr 2011)

Many teachers give grinds. Nice cash business.

There is no excuse for 3 months summer holidays + Christmas, Easter and Mid Terms.

Giving holidays like this does students no good.


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## Chris (20 Apr 2011)

csirl said:


> You could say the same about all employees of private sector companies who rely on state contracts/funding so its an irrelevent argument.



It is not an irrelevant argument. There are very few private companies that solely exist because of government contracts. The vast majority of the private sector is made up of companies that are dependent on private customers.



liaconn said:


> But in reality, Yes, we pay taxes.


You return some money to the tax pool where it came from, but you do not increase the tax pool and therefore do not contribute to the cost of running government.



liaconn said:


> What I was talking about here was situations where unions (for teachers or others) come in and protect a worker who is quite clearly not fit for the job and is as much a source of annoyance to their colleagues as to management. It undermines everyone and the whole concept of unions.


I fully agree, it is a disgrace that any organised body would stand over and defend the failure of some of its members.


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## liaconn (20 Apr 2011)

Chris said:


> You return some money to the tax pool where it came from, but you do not increase the tax pool and therefore do not contribute to the cost of running government.


 

But we do contribute to the economy.


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## callybags (20 Apr 2011)

> Originally Posted by *Chris* http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?p=1160884#post1160884
> 
> _You return some money to the tax pool where it came from, but you do not increase the tax pool and therefore do not contribute to the cost of running government._


_This is nonsense._

_If all the public services were put out to tender to private companies, and all the current public servants worked for these private companies, where do you think the government would get the money to pay for the services?_


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## Chris (20 Apr 2011)

liaconn said:


> But we do contribute to the economy.


You contribute time to the publicly provided services which are not part of the productive part of the economy. Thus you contribute to the non-producing part of the economy.



callybags said:


> _This is nonsense._
> 
> _If all the public services were put out to tender to private companies, and all the current public servants worked for these private companies, where do you think the government would get the money to pay for the services?_



No it is not nonsense. No matter how fancy accounting techniques get, you cannot claim that by giving someone a cheque for x amount and then getting back a cheque for x - y amount this increases your account balance beyond what it originally was.
This scenario has already been mentioned by csirl. But you highlight exactly the problem, income tax from people employed in services paid for through taxation do not add to the tax pool. It's not a chicken and egg scenario, you can only raise revenue by taxing production. Imagine a small island economy where people want to set up a government with certain services. They can only do so after taking money out of the productive economy.


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## liaconn (20 Apr 2011)

We pay tax , it comes out of our pay cheques every fortnight, and we keep private business  going by using and paying for their services. To use your logic any money we spend on private services should be deducted from the amount of tax paid by private sector workers and not reckonable.


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## Pique318 (20 Apr 2011)

TBH, I really don't understand why the Public Sector workers are given a salary 'Gross' of Tax.
The pay should be given Net, ie, your pay is 24k per annum, you get 2k per month.
Otherwise it is an exercise in futility. The govt pays you 30k and you pay them back 6k in tax, but the hassle and expense of collecting that 6k in tax is pointless imo.


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## DB74 (20 Apr 2011)

Pique318 said:


> TBH, I really don't understand why the Public Sector workers are given a salary 'Gross' of Tax.
> The pay should be given Net, ie, your pay is 24k per annum, you get 2k per month.
> Otherwise it is an exercise in futility. The govt pays you 30k and you pay them back 6k in tax, but the hassle and expense of collecting that 6k in tax is pointless imo.


 
Don't know if you're joking or not but people can have other sources of income, not to mention spouses who can also have other sources of income.

Also how would you claim back tax paid on medical expenses, bin charges etc etc.


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## liaconn (20 Apr 2011)

Pique318 said:


> TBH, I really don't understand why the Public Sector workers are given a salary 'Gross' of Tax.
> The pay should be given Net, ie, your pay is 24k per annum, you get 2k per month.
> Otherwise it is an exercise in futility. The govt pays you 30k and you pay them back 6k in tax, but the hassle and expense of collecting that 6k in tax is pointless imo.


 
And then have everyone going around saying civil servants don't pay any tax.


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## callybags (20 Apr 2011)

_



and therefore do not contribute to the cost of running government.

Click to expand...

_ 
This is the part I say is nonsense.

They contribute by paying part of their salary in tax. Where the government get the money to pay their salary is irrelevant.


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## orka (20 Apr 2011)

Yes, teachers spend their salaries and pay taxes - but it all comes from the pot produced by the productive economy. 

If you had an economy with no education/teachers and the citizens decided to start providing education and employed one teacher paid a salary of 50 gross and 25 net - the salary comes from the citizens paying an extra 25 in tax (reducing their spending power by 25 net) and gets paid to the teacher (providing a spending power to the teacher of 25). The economy loses 25 of spending from the citizens but gains 25 of spending from the teacher - but no net gain. The government extracts 25 from the citizens to pay 50 gross, 25 net to the teacher - so the government neither gains nor loses. The economy has no new money, it has just been redistributed.


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## callybags (20 Apr 2011)

The economy has no new money, but has gained a teacher. I think everyone is overlooking the actual work provided by the public service, and it's value.


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## orka (20 Apr 2011)

I don't think anyone is saying there is no value provided by education - but that's moving on to a different argument.  Chris is correct in saying that there is no contribution to the costs of running the government.


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## liaconn (20 Apr 2011)

orka said:


> I don't think anyone is saying there is no value provided by education - but that's moving on to a different argument. Chris is correct in saying that there is no contribution to the costs of running the government.


 
But there is a huge contribution to the economy and to the private sector.


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## callybags (20 Apr 2011)

orka said:


> I don't think anyone is saying there is no value provided by education - but that's moving on to a different argument. Chris is correct in saying that there is no contribution to the costs of running the government.


 
Of course they contribute to the cost.

If teachers were paid gross without any tax being deducted, there would be less money to pay the gardai, fire fighters etc.

How is this not contributing?


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## orka (20 Apr 2011)

callybags said:


> Of course they contribute to the cost.
> 
> If teachers were paid gross without any tax being deducted, there would be less money to pay the gardai, fire fighters etc.
> 
> How is this not contributing?


Wow - do you really intend this as a serious argument? Sure, I'll play along... If teachers were paid their salaries gross: (a) their gross would be whatever they currently get net...; failing that - (b) no-one would want to become a fireman, garda, everyone would want to be a mega-paid teacher, (c) current teachers wouldn't be able to get into teaching because there would be so much competition to be a mega-paid teacher that entry requirements would rocket, and (d) the Germans would really laugh their heads off at us trying to ease our bailout terms..


Did you read my post above? Where is the 'contribution' coming from?





orka said:


> If you had an economy with no education/teachers and the citizens decided to start providing education and employed one teacher paid a salary of 50 gross and 25 net - the salary comes from the citizens paying an extra 25 in tax (reducing their spending power by 25 net) and gets paid to the teacher (providing a spending power to the teacher of 25). The economy loses 25 of spending from the citizens but gains 25 of spending from the teacher - but no net gain. The government extracts 25 from the citizens to pay 50 gross, 25 net to the teacher - so the government neither gains nor loses. The economy has no new money, it has just been redistributed.


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## Firefly (20 Apr 2011)

Pique318 said:


> TBH, I really don't understand why the Public Sector workers are given a salary 'Gross' of Tax.
> The pay should be given Net, ie, your pay is 24k per annum, you get 2k per month.
> Otherwise it is an exercise in futility. The govt pays you 30k and you pay them back 6k in tax, but the hassle and expense of collecting that 6k in tax is pointless imo.



Ahh, but you're forgetting about the defined benefit pensions....they are based on final/average salaries...if salaries were reduced to the net of tax amount then the pensions would be lower too


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## Shawady (20 Apr 2011)

Firefly said:


> Ahh, but you're forgetting about the defined benefit pensions....they are based on final/average salaries...if salaries were reduced to the net of tax amount then the pensions would be lower too


 
Its an interesting point though.
If the government could adjust the pension entitlements to reflect the new 'tax free' wage, maybe public sector workers could be just paid a nett amount without reductions.
For example, instead of the 1.5 times gross for the lump sum it could be 2 times net (This is just example).

I think 15-20% of employees are based in public sector so it would cut down on the admin required for prisi, income levy, pension deductions etc,


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## Chris (20 Apr 2011)

liaconn said:


> We pay tax , it comes out of our pay cheques every fortnight, and we keep private business  going by using and paying for their services. To use your logic any money we spend on private services should be deducted from the amount of tax paid by private sector workers and not reckonable.


The tax you hand over to revenue comes out of the revenue coffers in the first place, this does not add to the tax pool.



callybags said:


> This is the part I say is nonsense.
> 
> They contribute by paying part of their salary in tax. Where the government get the money to pay their salary is irrelevant.


No, where government gets the money from is the most important thing. If I give my daughter pocket money out of my account and then ask her to contribute to household costs out of that pocket money, then I cannot claim that household revenue has been increased and she has contributed to the running costs of the household.



callybags said:


> The economy has no new money, but has gained a teacher. I think everyone is overlooking the actual work provided by the public service, and it's value.


It has gained a teacher and lost a job in the private sector. I am not saying that this is a good or a bad thing, but adding the teacher comes at a cost.



liaconn said:


> But there is a huge contribution to the economy and to the private sector.


No, government cannot contribute to the private economy. Ever penny government spends, be it on direct employees or on services by private companies, has to be taking out of the economy. At the very best there is zero net gain to the economy.



callybags said:


> Of course they contribute to the cost.
> 
> If teachers were paid gross without any tax being deducted, there would be less money to pay the gardai, fire fighters etc.
> 
> How is this not contributing?


I think what orka was saying is that if the current salary of a government employee is €24k and they have €2k deducted in taxes, then their salary should simply be €22k, while at the same time cutting out the cost of tax accounting on pay day. This would not mean that there is less money to pay for other services, as less wages would have been paid out in the first place.


Here is most simple way to demonstrate the scenario:
Imagine an island economy which is worth €1000 per anum. The residents decide it is time to set up a government and provide a certain amount of services. To do this they tax the economy at 10% resulting in revenue of €100 to the new government. The government then proceeds to employ some people and wages paid to all government employees is €50 per anum. These employees are then taxed at 10%, meaning they hand back €5 to the government. The government's revenue is now not up to €105 in total for the year, revenue is still €100. Only the productive economy can be a source of government revenue.


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## DB74 (20 Apr 2011)

Chris said:


> The government's revenue is now not up to €105 in total for the year


 
Actually it is

Just because the govt expenses have increased doesn't mean that their revenue hasn't


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## callybags (20 Apr 2011)

Where do the islanders get the poeple to do the new government's work?

If they are existing islanders then the private companies will need to cadge some immigrants from the next island over the way to do the work of the guys that left.
These will pay €5 in taxes, bringing the governments take up to €105.

The extra €5 comes from where???  The new public servants.


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## Pique318 (20 Apr 2011)

<facepalm>


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## Purple (20 Apr 2011)

callybags said:


> Where do the islanders get the poeple to do the new government's work?
> 
> If they are existing islanders then the private companies will need to cadge some immigrants from the next island over the way to do the work of the guys that left.
> These will pay €5 in taxes, bringing the governments take up to €105.
> ...



No, it reduces the net cost of services but it doesn't increase net revenue.


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## RoyRover (20 Apr 2011)

Purple said:


> No, it reduces the net cost of services but it doesn't increase net revenue.


 
Careful Purple - you're getting into the dangerous position of discussing economics with a socialist which is always a complete waste of time


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## Firefly (21 Apr 2011)

callybags said:


> Where do the islanders get the poeple to do the new government's work?
> 
> If they are existing islanders then the private companies will need to cadge some immigrants from the next island over the way to do the work of the guys that left.
> These will pay €5 in taxes, bringing the governments take up to €105.
> ...



I would argue the opposite....increasing the tax in the private sector to pay the wages in the public sector will obviously depress the economy. The result of this is that people will emigrate leaving less taxpayers in the private sector to meet the same tax amount to fund the public sector.


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## Chris (21 Apr 2011)

DB74 said:


> Actually it is
> 
> Just because the govt expenses have increased doesn't mean that their revenue hasn't


Revenue has not increased! Here is my example of a family again. Let's say I had monthly revenue of €1000 and then I child is added to the family. I give the child €100 in pocket money, but request that the child contributes to the costs of running the household, which includes paying the child's pocket money. So, I tax the child 10%. This has not resulted in my revenue increasing to €1010. To say so is simply nonsense.



callybags said:


> Where do the islanders get the poeple to do the new government's work?
> 
> If they are existing islanders then the private companies will need to cadge some immigrants from the next island over the way to do the work of the guys that left.
> These will pay €5 in taxes, bringing the governments take up to €105.
> ...



Let's say the government employees are recruited from the islanders. Then that would mean that the private enterprises either have to find a way to produce the same with less people, or they have to recruit outsiders which would not have been needed were it not for the government. What the government does through taxation is make the private economy less efficient. The private economy then has to find a way to counteract this. If the private economy simply said they would not recruit more people then government revenue would be unchanged. So it is not the government employee that is the source of extra revenue. Any increase in productivity causing an increase in revenue would still come from the private economy and not the government employees.


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## Yorrick (21 Apr 2011)

What about all the tax the teachers pay on the money they receive for grinds, running summer camps etc ??

Ooops Delete Deete Delete !!!


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## Firefly (21 Apr 2011)

Yorrick said:


> What about all the tax the teachers pay on the money they receive for grinds, running summer camps etc ??
> 
> Ooops Delete Deete Delete !!!



And all the excise duty they spend on petrol driving to Newry...

Ooops Delete Deete Delete !!!


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## zztop (21 Apr 2011)

Why isnt this thread given a 'RUBBISH' post.


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## DB74 (21 Apr 2011)

Chris said:


> Revenue has not increased! Here is my example of a family again. Let's say I had monthly revenue of €1000 and then I child is added to the family. I give the child €100 in pocket money, but request that the child contributes to the costs of running the household, which includes paying the child's pocket money. So, I tax the child 10%. This has not resulted in my revenue increasing to €1010. To say so is simply nonsense.


 
Actually Chris, your revenue, from an accounting point of view (the term which you yourself used in your first post on this thread), HAS increased to €1,010. To claim otherwise is nonsense.

There is no arguing that your net profit or net income or whatever you want to call it has decreased from €1,000 to €910 but your actual revenue, in accounting terms, has increased to €1,010


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## Sunny (21 Apr 2011)

zztop said:


> Why isnt this thread given a 'RUBBISH' post.


 
Have to agree with you there. It should be allowed die peacefully....


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## liaconn (21 Apr 2011)

Agree. Its getting tired and silly now.


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## RoyRover (21 Apr 2011)

Shame that none of the political parties have the gumption to tackle the teachers unions as Thatcher did with the NUT. There is no way she'd have Joe O'Toole laughing in the face of the taxpayer snidely comparing benchmarking to a free ATM machine.

I fully agree that effective teachers should be paid well, but there are so many poor teachers out there protected by their unions and a raft of labour laws at the expense of students and their parents. 

Ireland's continued slide in the education league tables, while teachers' terms and conditions go the opposite way, is a shameful track record


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## Lex Foutish (21 Apr 2011)

And it's a shame that you didn't address the ridiculous claim you made about your school children getting "completely unannounced" half days, when I replied to it. (*Post No. 19 on this thread*). 

I had hoped you'd have the gumption to reply to that. 

It appears that the lack of gumption you speak about isn't just confined to political parties.


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## Deiseblue (21 Apr 2011)

+ 1

A few further facts wouldn't go astray either , the last pay increase teachers received was in 2008.

Since then then their pay has been unilaterally reduced twice .


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## Lex Foutish (22 Apr 2011)

Yes, Deise. Never let the truth get in the way of a good, populist rant!


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## Purple (22 Apr 2011)

Lex Foutish said:


> And it's a shame that you didn't address the ridiculous claim you made about your school children getting "completely unannounced" half days, when I replied to it. (*Post No. 19 on this thread*).
> 
> I had hoped you'd have the gumption to reply to that.
> 
> It appears that the lack of gumption you speak about isn't just confined to political parties.


I have three children in school. It has happened many times that a note has been put in their bags about a half day two days before the event.


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## Lex Foutish (22 Apr 2011)

Purple said:


> I have three children in school. It has happened many times that a note has been put in their bags about a half day two days before the event.


 
Two days notice seems very short to me but I'm sure you'd agree that it wouldn't come under the heading of "*completely unannounced*."

Part of my point was that unannounced half days could surely have legal consequences for any school and I find it hard to believe that any school would be silly enough to engage in that practice.


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## Purple (22 Apr 2011)

I agree but it is very short notice to give.

I have no problem with the length of the school day; it should be set to suit the needs of the children and expecting then to learn for 8 hours a day is daft. 
I do have a problem with the length of the school year; as things have been added on to the curriculum over the last decade or so the school year should have increased to accommodate them rather than eating away at the time available to teach English and maths.

The secondary school year is far too short. After three months off in the summer kids have forgotten a good chunk of what they were taught the previous year and they have to learn to learn again after three months of doing nothing.


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## ajapale (22 Apr 2011)

Could posters use the report post facility if they think that the PG's are being breached and refrain from making comments on the face of thread? Such posts are off topic and will be deleted as such.

aj
moderator


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