Judge's Pay referendum v. Banker's cap ..grr!

K

Kate10

Registered User
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This whole thing is driving my crazy.

It seems that the chief justice gets €295k and a district court judge gets €147k. By way of comparison a salaried (ie non equity) partner in a big firm gets paid up to €200k, equity partners get a multiple of that (at least in good years), and who knows what the best barristers earn!!

Any sensible person would say that €200k is a hell of a lot of money. I can't even imagine earning that much. And maybe we can't afford to pay it anymore. However the deductions will reportedly save our economy about €250k per annum or in other words, half the current "cap" on one senior banker's salary. We hear constant whinging about how banks can't attract staff of sufficient caliber to run our zombie banks at the massive salary of €500k (which cap seems to be bypassed fairly regularly by the way!) but no-body is surprised that Peter Kelly, for example, is paid about €240k or less than half a senior banker's salary.

This banker's cap business infuriates me. The best legal minds in our country are paid €240k per annum and their job is to clear up the mess created by greedy bankers, but we can't get bankers to work for twice that salary?!!


I think most judges do the job because they want to do the job and do the job well. They don't do it for the money, because the vast majority of them were earning more in private practice. So where are the honest bankers? Where are the people who want to do a difficult job for the excellent salary of €240k?? What are we doing when we choose to pay €500k + who care more about their next bonus than anything else?
 
I suppose because they are to me!

Why do you see them as unrelated? Both salaries are paid out of the public purse. The justification for the cap being so high for bankers is that we cannot get people who are any good if we pay less. But we are cutting judges pay (who are already paid less than half the amount) without any concern there, when the cut will have no material effect on public finances. And we are having a referendum to do it!!

Complete red herring.
 
I agree that the referendum is a redc herring. It will take years to even pay for itself.
 
I don't see that they are unlinked. Also have days when it drives me crazy the whole sorry mess. To address some of your points.

200K is a heck of a lot of money, but it's not to certain people, those people live it seems to me on a different planet. They socialise together, live in the same areas, send their kids to the best schools and cannot comprehend how ordinary people live.

Even if the cuts you mention amount to a pittance in the grand scheme of things it's at least a start. It's the right thing to do, it's good, and it will start to bring the cost of living down.

Why do barristers chose to become judges when the salary drop is so high. Exhaustion, it's difficult to stay at the top of your game over a whole life time. Prestige, Judges live a pampered life. They are like gods in court, I've seen it go to the head of many of them, arrogance and dismissiveness, solicitors and barristers kow tow to them as they have really no choice. As for the mere plebs, people literally shake in court with fear and some find it hard in those circumstances to string a sentence together. Money, the salary is still fantastic, they've made their money, have the house the car and now want security and stability of a state job. Pension, need one say more. State guaranteed and they can retire after only a couple of years. Notarity, they feel important when their judgments are printed, discussed. Power, what a thrill.

Bankers have always been extremely well paid. Personally I think they just take people's hard earned money, invest into all kind of things that no ordinary person can understand, they make money on the transactions, on the way in, on the way up and the way out, basically moving money around and they are the one's who make the money not the investor. The reason they get paid so well is that it appears they are genisus with their products, the shares in the bank rises and shareholders are happy so who cares how much they get paid. Probably the laws on corporate structures need to be looked at and more power given to the owners, the shareholders. The bankers set their own pay, that needs to be looked at. Also why should any bank have been allowed to grow so powerful that it can bring down a country, that's the fault of parliment. In fact bankers are beyond the law in Ireland, and they can happily gamble away secure in the knowledge that when they make a bad debt it will be the taxpayer to pay while they swan off into the sunset. So bonus should be looked at as well and should be only paid 5 years after a good year. A quaint concept known as performance linked pay.
 
Have you been living in a tent in Mongolia for the last five years? That's the only possible reason that I can think of for holding this view on bankers.
 

What's an "ordinary person"?

I presume judges' and bankers' pay levels are set to a certain extent by the normal rules of supply and demand.

As an extreme example, if all salaries for newly appointed judges were capped at 50K per annum, we would very shortly have no judges, and therefore no justice system.

The same applies for any business/service.
 
These are protected professions. Normal rules of supply and demand do not apply.
They're above all that, don't you know.
 
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