Dublin bus routes privatised.

TheBigShort said:
I have no objection to a private operation providing the service providing quality of service is maintained and improved, and the standards of working conditions are not adversely affected.
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It's interesting that the cost to the consumer and taxpayer is not listed with your other two caveats.
 
newirishman said:
Nonsense? You numbers aren't correct.
Here's some details:
http://finance.gov.ie/sites/default/files/170104 Appendix I - Tax Receipts - end December 2016_0.pdf

Income Tax receipts for 2016: €19 billion (roughly) - that means a contribution of 6300 euro for the 3m or so taxpayers if everybody would pay.
Of course, the "bottom" 50% of earners contribute only 2.8%
[broken link removed]

VAT? Most Food stuff is zero rated, the rest (non-essential stuff!) is 13.5% . Children's clothing is zero rated. (OK - clothing for adults has VAT).
You get pretty far in this country without paying any significant amount of tax. And I'd say that many get more than that back via things like free travel passes, children's allowance, medical cards, etc
Taxation for people earning less than 35K (that is industrial average!) is close to non-existent in Ireland.
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For God's sake man, will you stop posting facts to this poster :p
 
TheBigShort said:
Yes, and you no doubt have serious issues about how the public service is run. But you cannot conflate every single issue in the public service, everytime, something you see something you disagree with.
We are talking about a specific tender to outsource Dublin Bus transport routes. You have diverted it to talk about Irish railways, the health service , the media, and whatever else you fancy having.

Nobody is disputing that there are numerous examples of public service efficiencies that could be improved. But as I have stated before, the argument to privatize any public service, purely on the basis that it can be done cheaper by someone else, is wholly inefficient (the irony)reason in itself.
I can give you examples of Gardaí, Judges, Prison Officers, Healthcare professionals, Teachers, Professors, etc...In each case, the job can be done by cheaper by someone else. However, driving down wages will lead to increased inefficiencies, decreased morale (in many, not all cases), open the door to corruption and overall deteriorate the welfare of the state to such a point as to increase poverty, hardship and death.
You are prepared to highlight inefficiencies, fair enough, but you stand at a point that ALL public services are inefficient. You broadstroke the whole public service with your generalisations. Thus your arguments continually fail.

The issue is about the outsourcing of Dublin Bus routes. I am skeptical that it will provide any discernable improvement to the consumer and/or to the working conditions to those that provide the service.
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Any organisation which cannot efficiently reallocate resources cannot be efficient. Therefore any organisation which cannot reduce staff numbers depending on demand and need is inefficient. That applies to every Public Sector and heavily Unionised body.
 
Firefly said:
It's interesting that the cost to the consumer and taxpayer is not listed with your other two caveats.
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???
One of the reasons that I'm skeptical about this outsourcing insofar that it will provide improved services to the consumer is on the basis that I doubt if the consumer will see anything in the range of reduced ticket prices.
As for the taxpayer, it has been stated that the NTA will pay Go Ahead to provide the service. It remains to be seen, how much is to be paid, and what benefit to the taxpayer there will be (if any).
 
Purple said:
Any organisation which cannot efficiently reallocate resources cannot be efficient. Therefore any organisation which cannot reduce staff numbers depending on demand and need is inefficient. That applies to every Public Sector and heavily Unionised body.
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The NTA has stated that there is no requirement for job losses due to increased number passengers. As well as that, the option to move over to Go Ahead to work as drivers seems to be on the table also.
Why reduce numbers?
 
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TheBigShort said:
As for the taxpayer, it has been stated that the NTA will pay Go Ahead to provide the service. It remains to be seen, how much is to be paid, and what benefit to the taxpayer there will be (if any).
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The NTA must be confident that any subvention to Go-Ahead will be less than that paid to Dublin Bus..
 
TheBigShort said:
The NTA has stated that there is no requirement for job losses due to increased number passengers. As well as that, the option to move over to Go Ahead to work as drivers seems to be on the table also.
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If there is no net saving to the State then it shouldn't be done.
If the proposal included a reduction in numbers (and a saving to the State) the unions would have stopped the whole thing.

TheBigShort said:
Why reduce numbers?
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To save taxpayers money and spend it where it will be of greater benefit to the State.
 
Firefly said:
The NTA must be confident that any subvention to Go-Ahead will be less than that paid to Dublin Bus..
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True. But it still remains to be seen how much is being saved (if anything at all). It then remains to be seen if the employee's terms of employment are maintained or enhanced. It is of course possible that additional employment opportunities arise from this.
But if employee wages are reduced, to what they would of got in Dublin Bus, then it remains to be seen where the savings go. Will they go to providing cheaper fares for consumers, or additional profits for shareholders? My understanding is that Go Ahead is broadly based in the UK. If savings go to shareholders, then that is income leaving this country.
 
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