Cowen had no idea revenue was down

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Shawady

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Is this even believable?
Surely as tax receipts come into Revenue, they are recorded and the trend could be monitored on a daily or weekly basis. (It just does not happen on the very last day of every month).

Whoever records this data would have the relevant experience to state which way the trend was compared to previous months.

And Brian Cowen spent the month of February telling everyone there would be no budget and never once checked this information.

Crazy stuff!
 
Shawady said:
Is this even believable?
Surely as tax receipts come into Revenue, they are recorded and the trend could be monitored on a daily or weekly basis. (It just does not happen on the very last day of every month).

Whoever records this data would have the relevant experience to state which way the trend was compared to previous months.

And Brian Cowen spent the month of February telling everyone there would be no budget and never once checked this information.

Crazy stuff!
Click to expand...

Conspiracy Theory: The unionised people in revenue deceided on a slow down and hence data is now only available once a month.

This is another example how incompetent our goverment and civil/public service is. In my company I can look up daily sales / revenue figures trends and while the final is only produced once a month I can otherwise look at the figures for trends.

Sure in this economic conditions people try to pay taxes or forward dues to revenue on the last possible moment in time but still you can't stand there saying that the public finance are in order if you don't have figures.
 
Taxes don't roll in on a consistent basis. VAT comes in bi-monthly, PAYE comes in on the 14th of the month etc...
 
What about VRT? It is well documented this was well down on last year and most people change their car at the start of the year. Does this come in on a monthly basis?

He tried to defend his postion by saying they took decisive action by saving €2 billion after the January figures but the government had already decided on those cuts in the middle of the January.

We could be in for a mini-budget a month for 2009.
 
Ok, so "Cowen had no idea revenue was down".

... and no-one in Govt could forecast the severity of the economic downturn
... and anyone who cast doubt on the boom was labelled as 'talking down the economy' and could 'go and kill themselves' by Cowen and Ahern...

There's a pattern here, methinks .... :rolleyes:
 
redstar said:
Ok, so "Cowen had no idea revenue was down".

... and no-one in Govt could forecast the severity of the economic downturn
... and anyone who cast doubt on the boom was labelled as 'talking down the economy' and could 'go and kill themselves' by Cowen and Ahern...

There's a pattern here, methinks .... :rolleyes:
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...and the Finance minister didn't read all the report on Anglo
 
DublinTexas said:
Now be fair, he did not read all of it, he just read what his officals highlighted. It's not his fault, that the offical did not highlight everything.
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Damn it. I should have put that down in my leaving cert History exam. "Teacher didn't highlight this part so thought I could avoid reading it." :)
 
Well, he is a barrister 'by trade', so is more used to presenting briefings from clients rather than analysing and producing solutions.
Now if only we had someone actually qualified in economics and finance as finance minister ..
 
redstar said:
Well, he is a barrister 'by trade', so is more used to presenting briefings from clients rather than analysing and producing solutions.
Now if only we had someone actually qualified in economics and finance as finance minister ..
Click to expand...

Someone mentioned on the radio yesterday that there is no economist employed in the Dept of Finance, but in Northern Irleand Assembly they have many. I only caught the end of it.
Does anyone know if this is true?
 
Shawady said:
Whoever records this data would have the relevant experience to state which way the trend was compared to previous months.
Click to expand...

One of my (many :)) bugbears is the inability of the Department of Finance to forecast tax revenues. In the good times they were way out but no-one cared cos the anomalies were in our favour. Now they're still wrong, but this time it's costing us.

I suspect our Taoiseach believes in 'plausible deniability'. While a natural sense of curiousity might have prompted him to find out who the Anglo 10 were, and how taxation receipts were holding up, or not, by deliberately not asking the question he can 'truthfully' claim to not know.
 
Shawady...I think a very learned Junior Minister is alleged to ask for a "loan" of such a person
 
Shawady said:
Someone mentioned on the radio yesterday that there is no economist employed in the Dept of Finance, but in Northern Irleand Assembly they have many. I only caught the end of it.
Does anyone know if this is true?
Click to expand...

From what I understand there is only one or possibly two people with a Phd in Economics in the Department of Finance.
It doesn't mean everyone else is unqualified but one or two might not be enough, who can say?

And I did read on teletext that some minister asked for a loan of a economist from NI to work in their department for a few months. Don't remember which minister or department though. It wasn't a problem anyway and they got somebody on loan
 
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