Oireachtas long-service increments

D

DerKaiser

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I think this issue is a complete smokescreen and the media have gone for it hook, line and sinker.

From today's independent:
http://www.independent.ie/national-...s-tds-cry-foul-over-entitlements-1713455.html
TDs in Dail Eireann basic salaries vary between €100,190 and €106,582, depending on length of service.
Our 20 junior ministers are still in receipt of their full salary of €139,266
Senior ministers are currently paid €202,000 while Tanaiste Mary Coughlan receives €220,792 and Taoiseach Brian Cowen gets €257,024

Why on earth are we quibbling about paying those who have been elected at least 3 times an extra €6,400?

Why is there all this BS about voluntary pay cuts?

It's to distract attention from the real issue that 166 TDs should each probably take a 20% pay cut and the corresponding reduction in future pension benefits that this would result in.

TD's basic salaries are over €20m but the media is focused on the €0.4m long service payments. Talk about getting sidetracked! We should be talking in terms of saving 10 times that amount now by imposing actual pay cuts, as well as the massive savings this will yield from their future pensions entitlements.
 
I think it's a perfect example of why this country has a long way to go to get out of this mess. Simply: everyone else should pay for this mess but me/ everyone else is to blame but me.

There's too much self interest from everyone, this was hidden when many were reaping the rewards, but now we all have to club together and take a hit we wont.

The system doesn't help and the measures of the budget don't help. The pain has to be evenly distributed, but there's too much self-interest and pressure to stop that being so. As a result, the "in this together" culture we need will never happen.

And the only demographic that tends not to have representation or lobbying: upper-middle income/middle class. The demographic hit the hardest: upper-middle income/middle class.

Ummm, in short. Yeah TDs should take a pay cut, but they wont.
 
Maybe it's time for a General Election and all parties can identify where the cuts will come from, and what salary and benifits they will give themselves. Then let the people vote on it.

At the moment it's like we're on a sinking ship and it's every man for himself.
 
Mucker Man said:
Maybe it's time for a General Election and all parties can identify where the cuts will come from, and what salary and benifits they will give themselves. Then let the people vote on it.

At the moment it's like we're on a sinking ship and it's every man for himself.
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what party leader has come out and told his folks they must refuse this bonus in the national interest? in which case even if there is an election who are we going to vote for?
 
No party leader has come out, because they know that people vote for the same people over and over again, just like their father and his father, for example Michael Lowry and Beverly Cooper-Flynn.
 
I agree. It seems that no matter how corrupt or low a politician is in this country, they will always get blindly voted back in by the party 'faithful'. "Sure, we've always voted Fianna Fail. His father was a grand man' kind of rubbish. People who vote in this way are a complete pain and contribute largely to the ongoing corruption in our political system.
 
liaconn said:
I agree. It seems that no matter how corrupt or low a politician is in this country, they will always get blindly voted back in by the party 'faithful'. "Sure, we've always voted Fianna Fail. His father was a grand man' kind of rubbish. People who vote in this way are a complete pain and contribute largely to the ongoing corruption in our political system.
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Maybe it's also symptomatic of people feeling there is no worthy alternative. I know there is an aspect of party faithfuls, but for those who are open to voting for an alternative might be wondering if there really is someone there who could do a better job.

I don't a fixed affiliation to any party, but I can't see and don't hear anything from the opposition that's making me think they're worthy of a vote in the event of a general election.
 
I agree, but I'm really talking about people voting for individuals like the obnoxious Beverly, despite what they have done just because its traditional, their family have always voted for the Flynns or the Cowens or whoever. People should be voting on party policies and ethics and on strong track records, not on whether or not they went to school with somebody's mother, or he drinks in the same pub as them on a Friday night.
 
somehow i think a lot of that will change, I don't vote for a party i vote for what people do or don't do - and I think many young people will do the same this time around.
 
This is why the best candidates dont necessarily win, the most popular ones do.

Anybody here ever see that C4 programme "skins". Now I only saw it because my wife watches it (I swear), but there was the Perfect example of how elections are decided upon.

Basically there was a school election for class president. The popular waster, drink fueled idiot won the election over the intelligent, down to earth realist.

Perhaps this is an extreme point and Im not necessarily saying that all Politicians are in the same category, but at the end of the day its human nature to vote for somebody whom you like, not necessarily somebody whom you think will do the right job.

I heard somewhere that :

-10% of the country will follow one train of thought
-10% of the country will follow another train of thought
-80% will just follow one of the groups.

It was in relation to the nazi's and the Germans (the age old question of how could such an intelligent country follow such crazy ideals).

Its similar when you are talking about politicians who have nothing to offer (certainly ones who arent fit to be in office). Politics is about popularity, look at bertie, some idiots still think "sure he woulda gotten us out of this mess" as if he wasnt the man holding the match to the fuse that started this mess . .

I dont think we live in a democracy to be honest (certainly not the ideal that most of us think it to be). Do we all believe that we have "direct equal access to power" or that we all have "universally recognised freedoms and liberties". Im sure technically it could be argued that we do, but I think Money changes all that. Democracy with capitalism is a contradiction in itself. If i have enough money I can buy myself into public image, buy myself out of trouble or "encourage" legislation for my own means . ..
 
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