Angry delegate tells minister she's left with just €94 per week

UptheDeise said:
You've also mentioned lax regulation. We've enough regulation in place and we don't need anymore. By regulating, we introduce more complexity and expand the governments interference in the market place. No thank you very much.
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Isn't that what Sean Fitzpatrick said?
 
Staples said:
Isn't that what Sean Fitzpatrick said?
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No amount of regulation would have stopped Sean Fitzpatrick from doing what he did. Useless you regulate the market into oblivion. Besides you can't regulate against cronyism.

The best regulator we have is the free market. It is fair and totally unbiased.
 
Howitzer said:
How could she have thought it was a good idea to have so much of her (very good for her age) income going on mortgage payments.
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Look. She's angry because she's experiencing hurt that she never thought would come her way. You could argue whether or not she should have seen it coming but, let's face it, a lot of people choose to work in the civil/public service because of the job and wage security. As a civil servant, I know of several who voluntarily took a pay cut from their private sector jobs for this very reason.

The concept of a pay CUT is not one that public servants have ever had to contemplate in the history of the State and it would have been unthinkable as recently as 9 months ago. I worked in the civil service in the dark 80s and the pay was poor then relative to the private sector but at least it was guaranteed and there was a value attached to that. You could argue at length as to whether public servants are currently overpaid but one thing that has always a given was that salaries would never go south. If we are overpaid, it's the combined fault of government and unions for agreeing soft-option money-led solutions to compensate for structural deficiencies. You can't blame workers for taking money that was offered unconditionally.

This teacher, like all public servants, has made long-term financial decisions on the basis of what she reasonably assumed was a guaranteed level of income and the sudden loss of income is causing many people some hardship - not as bad as losing your job, but hardship nonethless. None of us will make that mistake again in the brave new world in which we now exist. Her anger and frustration, on a personal level, is understandable but her behaviour is unacceptable. Her hurt, anger and frustration are probably representative of many public servants who feel they've been led a merry dance by government and unions. Her behaviour and reaction, however, is representative of far fewer.
 
Purple said:
Kevin Myres in todays Irish Independent makes some excellent points on the subject of teachers. One of which is that German schools produce students with a higher level of english than Irish schools.
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While I agree with Myers on certain subjects, I find that he plays loosely with the facts. Am always suspicious of his claims.
 
Staples said:
a lot of people choose to work in the civil/public service because of the job and wage security. As a civil servant, I know of several who voluntarily took a pay cut from their private sector jobs for this very reason.
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That doesn't mean it should continue like this. As someone who pays these salaries I want to see some performance related metric. The days of getting arbitary and guaranteed raises are over and should never have existed.
 

If the auditor/regulator was on top of his job, the Anglo debacle would not have taken place. Fitzpatrick may have gotten away for 12 months max but it should then have been twigged. One of the buttresses of the financial lending houses is prudence. Blatant ramping (make no mistake about it, 'cause that is what it was) took place. If the management were transparent with the paperwork, the shares would not have soared. So anyone that had a true picture is culpable. This being Ireland, I doubt that these pirates will walk the plank. But there are other newer democracies where they and their immediate families would have had to get a one way after dark flight.
 
You can regulate against cronyism. The Cadbury report in the UK into good corporate governance recommended that you don't let CEOs become Chairperson in the same organisation, to stop this kind of cronyism. That simple rule would have prevented Seanie's abuse.
 

Well said. Rightly or wrongly, public servants' mortgages were stress tested against a guaranteed salary and incremental scale. This is genuinely leaving a lot of public servants in a difficult position. Its not the same as losing your job, but it is still worrying and stressful and having people point fingers and (in some cases) almost crowing at these people's misfortune is a bit distasteful.
 
liaconn said:
Public servants' mortgages were stress tested against a guaranteed salary and incremental scale. This is genuinely leaving a lot of public servants in a difficult position. crowing at these people's misfortune is a bit distasteful.
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If you think she's misfortunate then you have not thought very much about real misfortune.

Look, everyone's mortgage was stress tested against the wage they had. Don't try to construct an arguement that this entitles them to the net income the bank assumed they would earn. It's logic like this that is the problem.

No one is questioning that people are stressed out over tax hikes.

The person in question must have been pretty indignant though to harass the minister for 15 minutes.

We've been through her situation. She chose to buy a 3 bedroom house at the age of 24, borrowing almost 8 times her salary. She now has a smaller disposable income that she thought she would, but has a guaranteed job, enough to pay for food and the roof over her head.

This situation for me does not warrant ministerial time. If the minster does pay her any heed, where does she expect to be subsidised from? People need to have a bit of cop on as to how well they are doing relative to say starving kids in Africa or Cystic fibrosis sufferers with a life expectancy of 21 (just two examples of where just a fraction of the money raised in the recent tax increase could save or immeasurably improve many lives).

As an act of utter selfishness and disregard for society this attitude absolutely sickens me.
 
The minister should not attend the teachers union conferences next year without guarantees that those attending will not behave like petulant children (like that stupid, self indulgent buffoon who made a show of herself chasing after the minister or the other clowns that stuck their noses in the air and walked out when he got up to speak).

The very least they should do is show a little respect for their boss.
 
And so say all of us. Imagine the indignation of a teacher if a pupil walked out because he/she didn't like what the teacher was saying. This is no way for them to show consideration, leadership, understanding and manners. Most are an obnoxious bunch of egocentrics. And as far removed from normality as their inflated sense of self allows.
 

I am not defending the way that particular individual behaved. I'm saying that an extra factor taken into account when public servants applied for a mortgage was the fact that their salary and increments were perceived to be 100% secure and this was an important element in the stress test. If a private sector worker said that, due to a 10% deduction in his pay he was now in trouble with his mortgage he would, quite rightly, gets nods of sympathy and understanding. When a public servant says the same thing, the attitude of a lot of people is 'tough'. Not nice, in my view. That's all.

Also, please don't put words into my mouth. I did not say public servants were entitled to the same salary as they had at the time they took out their mortgage. I said it was understandable that they are just as upset as people in the private sector if they feel they may not be able to meet their mortgage repayments due to a salary reduction,.
 
liaconn said:
I am not defending the way that particular individual behaved ... When a public servant says the same thing, the attitude of a lot of people is 'tough'. Not nice, in my view. That's all.
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Perhaps the two are linked?
 
I see now how that post could have been misconstrued, however:

You complained about the lack of sympathy this person seems to be getting. I suggested that this may be caused by her behaviour.
 

Again Lianconn, this is not a public vs private issue. I'd be making the exact same point for junior accountants and solicitors. I doubt if a 24 year old trainee accountant who took a cut in their net wage would be looked on more favourably by anyone.

You talk about putting words in people's mouths? I said that no one was entitled to the wage their loan applications were based on and you are requoting as if this was somehow limited to public servants?

You are being hyper sensitive to criticism of anyone who works in the public service as if its a criticism of the entire public service. This is not the case. I work in financial services and don't consider criticism of Bank Chiefs to be private sector bashing
 
Like I said, I'm not supporting the behaviour of this individual teacher. But there have been many postings on this board bascially saying 'yeah, tough' to public servants who are now struggling to pay their mortgages because they were taken out on the assumption that their salaries and incremental scales were 100% safe. Some people are almost crowing about it, (you're not as safe as you thought you were, kind of thing) and I just think its a bit nasty. Also, I was trying to get across the fact that public servants' mortgages were not stress tested in the way that private sector workers' were because of the assumption that their salaries could not be reduced and their jobs were secure, so criticising them for being in a bit of shock to now discover that this is not the case, is not fair. You seemed to take this to imply that I was saying people should still be on the same wages that they got at the time of taking out their mortgage.

And if you've read other posts of mine on this board, you will realise that I'm far from 'hyper sensitive' about criticism of the public service.
 
shanegl said:
I see now how that post could have been misconstrued, however:

You complained about the lack of sympathy this person seems to be getting. I suggested that this may be caused by her behaviour.
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No, you didn't. You took two parts of my post and put them along side each other out of context to suggestthat this individual'sbehaviour might suggest the lack of sympathy for 'public servants' in a financial predicament. That may not be how you intended it to come across, but that was the reason for my response. It was the lack of sympathy for all public servants that I was expressing concern about.
 
Staples said:
This teacher, like all public servants, has made long-term financial decisions on the basis of what she reasonably assumed was a guaranteed level of income .
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this teacher and those other public servants who showed zero ambition by targeting jobs with safe salaries and safe pensions deserve the dose of reality that the pension levy has brought. If only they could take a moment to try comprehend how the 400,000 plus people we now have on the dole around the country feel they would certainly appreciate their safe jobs.
 
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