Vinne Browne on Gilmore & Rabbitt

[callybags]

CLAUSE 1.28 of the Croke Park agreement on public service pay and conditions states: “The implementation of this agreement is subject to no currently unforeseen budgetary deterioration.”

Time for the government to grow a spine and invoke that clause.

I have often seen this clause referred to as a way for the government to cut public sector pay within the parameters of the CPA.

However, I cannt see where there has been "unforseen budgetary deterioration" since the agreement was put in place.

Maybe I am wrong.

 

[celebtastic]

You may have missed the bit where we had to go begging to the IMF to get them to bail the country out due to unforseen budgetary deterioration

 

[callybags]

The CPA was signed on 06th June 2010.

The bailout was finally agreed on or about 29th November 2010.

I think the 2dogs in the street" knew in June that we were headed for a bailout from the IMF.

I don't think there were any "unforseen budgetary deteriorations" between June and November 2010.

Again, maybe I am wrong and would welcome the details of such "unforseen deterioration".

 

[Firefly]

Again, maybe I am wrong and would welcome the details of such "unforseen deterioration".

Hi callybags,

You're probably right. It still doesn't change the fact though that the next generation, as well as trying to pay for their own current expenditure will also have to pay for ours, along with interest.

Firefly.

 

[callybags]

Hi callybags,

You're probably right. It still doesn't change the fact though that the next generation, as well as trying to pay for their own current expenditure will also have to pay for ours, along with interest.

Firefly.

I fully agree.

I just think it doesn't do the debate any good to introduce red herrings.

There should be targeted redundancies- not voluntary in the public service to reduce the payroll substantially. This should be insisted upon in the next round of negotiations.

From what I can see the majority of salaries ( or where most of the overall spend on salaries goes) are not excessive, so apart from the optics of reducing the higher paid people the savings will have to come from a reduction in the numbers, but as I said above it will have to be targeted to reduce the cuts to services.

 

[celebtastic]

I fully agree.

I just think it doesn't do the debate any good to introduce red herrings.

There should be targeted redundancies- not voluntary in the public service to reduce the payroll substantially. This should be insisted upon in the next round of negotiations.

I fully agree.

Both the numbers and the pension and salary levels need to be dramatically cut.

From what I can see the majority of salaries ( or where most of the overall spend on salaries goes) are not excessive, so apart from the optics of reducing the higher paid people the savings will have to come from a reduction in the numbers, but as I said above it will have to be targeted to reduce the cuts to services.

Not sure I agree on that one. A more detailed analysis, similar to that dine under the benchmarking fiasco needs to be done to answer this authoritatively.

The CSO's latest report makes interesting reading.

According to Table 1 on Page 6, average earnings in the public sector are, in fact, 50% higher than those in the private sector.
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/re...cuments/earnings/2012/earnlabcosts_q32012.pdf


With the country broke, and the Government themselves forecasting that we need to borrow €15,000,000,000 this year alone - something dramatic needs to be done.
http://budget.gov.ie/budgets/2013/Documents/Budget 2013 - Economic and Fiscal Outlook.pdf


We owe it to future generations of Irish taxpayers not to cut back dramatically now.

 

[Purple]

The issue isn’t that people in the public sector are overpaid; that’s a subjective argument.
The issue is that Ireland Inc. can’t afford the bill. That’s what needs to be addressed; how do we deliver the same services for less money overall. If the Croke Park agreement can achieve that then great but so far there’s little evidence of that. It’s made savings and under normal circumstances it would be great but these aren’t normal circumstances.
Vinnie doesn't seem to be willing to accept that.

 

[T McGibney]

The CPA was signed on 06th June 2010.

The bailout was finally agreed on or about 29th November 2010.

I think the 2dogs in the street" knew in June that we were headed for a bailout from the IMF.

A number of senior government ministers of the time certainly didn't - and at least one political career was badly damaged as a result.

 

[Complainer]

The CSO's latest report makes interesting reading.

According to Table 1 on Page 6, average earnings in the public sector are, in fact, 50% higher than those in the private sector.
http://www.cso.ie/en/media/csoie/re...cuments/earnings/2012/earnlabcosts_q32012.pdf

You still haven't got the hang of the averages thing, have you? On average, houses in Dublin are more expensive than houses outside Dublin. Does that mean that all house prices in Dublin are over-priced?

 

[Firefly]

You still haven't got the hang of the averages thing, have you? On average, houses in Dublin are more expensive than houses outside Dublin. Does that mean that all house prices in Dublin are over-priced?

And what happened when everyone knew that they had become too expensive and no-one could afford them? Their prices came down...

 

[Chris]

Say the government pays out 20bn in salaries & pensions to the public sector. Perhaps 12bn of this will come back in taxes (income, VAT etc). The shortfall of 8bn comes from the private sector. It's these taxpayers that I fear are running out. Sadly the PS cannot fund itself - and this is perfectly understandable - no democratic country in the world has such a public sector. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for a well-paid public sector, but strongly feel that it should only be funded from current taxation.

You forget one important thing. Anybody who gets paid out of the tax coffers, does not contribute to the tax revenue by being taxed on income. The government does not end up with something that it didn't already have before it paid someone. The €20bn used for salaries has to originally come from the private economy. Government does not have any money of its own and cannot perpetuate income from its direct employees.
I agree that we do want a well paid public sector for the services we actually really need. Instead of pay cuts we should be getting rid of services that are not critical and in many cases completely unnecessary or useless.

 

[celebtastic]

Y...we should be getting rid of services that are not critical and in many cases completely unnecessary or useless.

+1

We should be doing this in addition to dramatically cutting public sector pay and pensions.

The precedent is there - the unions have signed up to substantially inferior terms and conditions for new joiners (ie non-members).

If such terms are acceptable for new joiners, surely they should be acceptable for existing members.

Ni neart go cur le ceile, and all that ...

 

[brigade]

So, by how much do you think pay and pensions should be "dramatically" cut by?

 

[Marion]

The precedent is there - the unions have signed up to substantially inferior terms and conditions for new joiners (ie non-members).


What evidence do you have of this? Ie:new joiners are non members?


Marion

 

[Purple]

What evidence do you have of this? Ie:new joiners are non members?

Marion

Good question. I don’t see how it can be said one way or the other if new entrants have joined a union.

Mind you, if I saw my future career prospects and pay and pension eviscerated by the union fat cats in order to protect their mates I would be slow to join up in order to fund their salaries and pensions.

 

[Deiseblue]

Good question. I don’t see how it can be said one way or the other if new entrants have joined a union.

Mind you, if I saw my future career prospects and pay and pension eviscerated by the union fat cats in order to protect their mates I would be slow to join up in order to fund their salaries and pensions.

On the bright side , as you have opined from time to time , nobody can deny that the Unions have done great work on behalf of their members particularly in terms of pay !

Betcha the members of SIPTU ( Ireland's biggest Union ) in general are happy with Jack O'Connor ( current salary euro 112,600 per annum ) - certainly happier than the shareholders of AIB , BOI & Anglo where the true fat cats Sheehy , Goggin & Seanie earned millions , Goggin alone in his last full year earned a salary of 3 million euros !

 

[Complainer]

You forget one important thing. Anybody who gets paid out of the tax coffers, does not contribute to the tax revenue by being taxed on income. The government does not end up with something that it didn't already have before it paid someone. The €20bn used for salaries has to originally come from the private economy. Government does not have any money of its own and cannot perpetuate income from its direct employees.

I see, so civil and public servants don't pay tax. Interesting. I guess you'll be happy to use my net salary and not my gross in any future salary comparisons then, given that I don't pay any tax - right?

Instead of pay cuts we should be getting rid of services that are not critical and in many cases completely unnecessary or useless.

Would you care to be specific about which services are 'completely unnecessary or useless'?

 

[Firefly]

I see, so civil and public servants don't pay tax. Interesting. I guess you'll be happy to use my net salary and not my gross in any future salary comparisons then, given that I don't pay any tax - right?

That's probably a good idea actually, as your net salary is exactly what has to be raised via taxation from the private sector.

 

[Purple]

That's probably a good idea actually, as your net salary is exactly what has to be raised via taxation from the private sector.

You'd have to include allowances and the cost of pension funding to get that figure. It may be higher than the gross figure!

 

[Firefly]

On the bright side , as you have opined from time to time , nobody can deny that the Unions have done great work on behalf of their members particularly in terms of pay !

I fully agree..the unions have done a great job for their members. For real proof, all you have to look at is ballooning in our national debt. Who cares though right, cos it's our kids/grand kids that will have to pay for it eh?

Croke Park has resulted in Services rather than Salaries being cut. This protects those in the PS in the short-term, but when say someone who retires from the PS gets sick and ends up on a trolley in A&E for a few days, or when their disabled grand son can't get special care or if God forbid they are burgled and beaten in the middle of the night but their nearest Garda station has been closed? Would it not be better to reduce pay and maintain services?