Can we trust fianna fail with current figures?

yoshytoshy

Can we trust fianna fail with the upcoming supplimentary budget ?
I'm concerned that they may use it to improve their image globally ,rather than what actually needs to be done.

The 9 week backlog in social welfare payments ,has to be having an effect on figures. Can we trust that they are being straight with us ?

Johnboy Mac

No, you could'nt trust them full stop no matter what subject you wish to cover.

K4t

yoshytoshy wrote: »

Can we trust that they are being straight with us ?

Why should they start now?

shqipshume

Fianna fail doing anything in this country worries me now!

yoshytoshy

I thought it was worth discussing ,but it seems to be a thread in vain:(

Sorry.

turgon

yoshytoshy wrote: »

seems to be a thread in vain:(

Not at all

How do you mean the 9 week backlog?

As regards improving their image globally, surely this would mean only making moderately harsh decisions, which would be better? As in not drastically upping taxes and such. What decisions do you think would be made for the improvement of their image?

But in a general sense, I dont think Fianna Fail are overly concerned about anything other than the Irish people. Most of their decisions and actions are motivated by keeping themselves in power no matter what.

yoshytoshy

turgon wrote: »

Not at all

How do you mean the 9 week backlog?

As regards improving their image globally, surely this would mean only making moderately harsh decisions, which would be better? As in not drastically upping taxes and such. What decisions do you think would be made for the improvement of their image?

But in a general sense, I dont think Fianna Fail are overly concerned about anything other than the Irish people. Most of their decisions and actions are motivated by keeping themselves in power no matter what.

People have been on the radio , talking of backlogs currently in dole payments .Seemingly people are waiting nearly nine weeks for payment.
My fears are that fianna fail may try and hide the extent of things ,so that people don't kick them out. Making things worse next year for everyone:o


Every time they get things wrong ,I think its more to do with them covering up ,rather than getting it wrong.

Theres just too many people ,with fancy figures ,telling people doing the figures that the figures are all figured out.

turgon

yoshytoshy wrote: »

People have been on the radio , talking of backlogs currently in dole payments .Seemingly people are waiting nearly nine weeks for payment.

Well I hope not because Ill be signing on next week unless a job comes up. But you are right, most especially because FF are very responsible for this mess. So any cover up is just them trying to hide the repercussions of their actions.

dresden8

Once you sign on you are on the Live Register, even if you are not in payment, so that number is accurate.

It's the optimistic forecasts and "we'll start to come out of it next year" stuff is where it's all made up.

Does anybody believe Central Bank, Davy Stockbroker or whoever is the flavour of the month's economist or the the Department of Finance have to say?

yoshytoshy

dresden8 wrote: »

Once you sign on you are on the Live Register, even if you are not in payment, so that number is accurate.

If you look at the figures for last month ,you'll notice that the figures seem way out for social welfare.
It was pointed out on a vincent brown review last month ,an analyst was suprised at the low figure(euro cost) ,compared to unemployment figures.

turgon

yoshytoshy wrote: »

If you look at the figures for last month ,you'll notice that the figures seem way out for social welfare.
It was pointed out on a vincent brown review last month ,an analyst was suprised at the low figure(euro cost) ,compared to unemployment figures.

One has to realize its becoming increasingly means tested. For under-24's parental income is taken into account if living at home.

Johnboy Mac

yoshytoshy wrote: »

If you look at the figures for last month ,you'll notice that the figures seem way out for social welfare.
It was pointed out on a vincent brown review last month ,an analyst was suprised at the low figure(euro cost) ,compared to unemployment figures.

No doubt you point is very valid. But they have always 'messed' or 'fudged' or 'distorted' and so would say lied (me included) about the figures on EVERYTHING. They call it politics!!!

thebman

yoshytoshy wrote: »

People have been on the radio , talking of backlogs currently in dole payments .Seemingly people are waiting nearly nine weeks for payment.
My fears are that fianna fail may try and hide the extent of things ,so that people don't kick them out. Making things worse next year for everyone:o


Every time they get things wrong ,I think its more to do with them covering up ,rather than getting it wrong.

Theres just too many people ,with fancy figures ,telling people doing the figures that the figures are all figured out.

Link to a proper source that there is a 9 week backlog on SW payments.

Saying you heard it on the radio isn't really proof that it is occurring. Anyone can ring the radio station even if you didn't make it up.

yoshytoshy

turgon wrote: »

One has to realize its becoming increasingly means tested. For under-24's parental income is taken into account if living at home.

The delay isn't the problem ,well not for me personally ,but it's how fianna fail takes advantage of the backlog.

Are they going to just write in the expenditure of social welfare payments ,or the projected payments in relation to the actual live register aswell.

stepbar

dresden8 wrote: »

Once you sign on you are on the Live Register, even if you are not in payment, so that number is accurate.

It's the optimistic forecasts and "we'll start to come out of it next year" stuff is where it's all made up.

Does anybody believe Central Bank, Davy Stockbroker or whoever is the flavour of the month's economist or the the Department of Finance have to say?

Unless you have a "Mystic Meg" degree in economics it's very hard to make predictions when the nations finances are deterioting on a daily basis. FFS Fianna Fail (and Fine Gael) were basing their election promises on a 4% increase in GNP yr on yr. As much as I despise Fianna Fail, the suitation this country is in is pretty desperate and as such it's very hard to make accurate projections.

yoshytoshy

thebman wrote: »

Link to a proper source that there is a 9 week backlog on SW payments.

Saying you heard it on the radio isn't really proof that it is occurring. Anyone can ring the radio station even if you didn't make it up.

I couldn't make this up if I tried ,I'm not a journalist and if I was ,I'd be writing it in the paper myself.

Johnboy Mac

thebman wrote: »

Link to a proper source that there is a 9 week backlog on SW payments.

Saying you heard it on the radio isn't really proof that it is occurring. Anyone can ring the radio station even if you didn't make it up.

O.k. then doubter, I signed on, on the first working day in January and have received diddly squat from Social Welfare. How many weeks is that? And don't insult me by saying I'm an exception.

Offy

yoshytoshy wrote: »

Can we trust fianna fail with the upcoming supplimentary budget ?
I'm concerned that they may use it to improve their image globally ,rather than what actually needs to be done.

The 9 week backlog in social welfare payments ,has to be having an effect on figures. Can we trust that they are being straight with us ?

I think we can, they seemed to have learnt their lesson after Haughty and Bertie. With punishments like they received I think all politicians will think long and hard before breaking the law again. After all look at the consequences they have suffered for all the brown envelopes and dirty dealings. So OP I think you can rest assured they have our best interests at heart.

stepbar

Johnboy Mac wrote: »

O.k. then doubter, I signed on, on the first working day in January and have received diddly squat from Social Welfare. How many weeks is that? And don't insult me by saying I'm an exception.

I believe there is a 9 week lead on time if your quit your job volentary but I doubt in the present times this applies to many people.

Johnboy Mac

stepbar wrote: »

I believe there is a 9 week lead on time if your quit your job volentary but I doubt in the present times this applies to many people.

Do you work for SW? I just said I'm waiting nearly 70 days & I was made unemployed!

yoshytoshy

Offy wrote: »

I think we can, they seemed to have learnt their lesson after Haughty and Bertie. With punishments like they received I think all politicians will think long and hard before breaking the law again. After all look at the consequences they have suffered for all the brown envelopes and dirty dealings. So OP I think you can rest assured they have our best interests at heart.

It's not illegal though ,there wouldn't be any law broken if this is what is happening.
Theres advisors who would be out of jobs aswell ,it's the thoughts of government being overly reliant on advice from high paid people.

I don't see Fianna fail as just the dail members ,theres the whole army of people they have working on figures for them.

dresden8

yoshytoshy wrote: »

If you look at the figures for last month ,you'll notice that the figures seem way out for social welfare.
It was pointed out on a vincent brown review last month ,an analyst was suprised at the low figure(euro cost) ,compared to unemployment figures.

If you think about my answer, high number on Live Register versus a long waiting list to go into payment equals a low expenditure. Factor in Department of Finance "estimates" for the rest of the year and you're in fairy lala land.

Whatever you say about a lot of "public servants", the CSO are "clean" and report accurately.

thebman

Johnboy Mac wrote: »

O.k. then doubter, I signed on, on the first working day in January and have received diddly squat from Social Welfare. How many weeks is that? And don't insult me by saying I'm an exception.

I'm doubting it but you need a source all the same.

The important thing is the reason for the delay. Is it because of lack of people working in the SW office or are they not working hard enough or is it an intentional tactic by the government or all of the above?

stepbar

Johnboy Mac wrote: »

Do you work for SW? I just said I'm waiting nearly 70 days & I was made unemployed!

I used to back in 2005.

yoshytoshy

dresden8 wrote: »

Whatever you say about a lot of "public servants", the CSO are "clean" and report accurately.

I wasn't suggesting that the civil service/public service was corrupt. Just looking at it realistically ,people in high paid jobs like to keep people happy.

But it's down to fianna fail to know whats what ,question is how reliant are they on the advice they get.

I.E. The whole bank report fiasco ,that the minister for finance didn't know about:rolleyes:

dresden8

thebman wrote: »

The important thing is the reason for the delay. Is it because of lack of people working in the SW office or are they not working hard enough or is it an intentional tactic by the government or all of the above?

The live register is up something like 70 or 80% for the year. They're up to their t1ts.

dresden8

yoshytoshy wrote: »

I wasn't suggesting that the civil service/public service was corrupt. Just looking at it realistically ,people in high paid jobs like to keep people happy.

But it's down to fianna fail to know whats what ,question is how reliant are they on the advice they get.

I.E. The whole bank report fiasco ,that the minister for finance didn't know about:rolleyes:

In the above case it's whether the advice and facts were there or not. They chose not to read it. If, in fact, they didn't read it.

The government will spin, some idiots will believe it. That's politics.

But to re-iterate the point, there are delays in Social Welfare because the Live Register is up 70 to 80% on the year. The unemployment rate has gone from 8.3% in December 2008 to 10.4% in February 2009.

That's 63,000 or so extra claims in 2 months. Not an inconsiderable number.

gurramok

Johnboy Mac, you should be getting payments from the CWO in the meantime.

thebman, a simple google of news items http://www.google.ie/search?hl=en&q=unemployment+backlog+&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryIE
And a few posts on boards in the State Benefits forum backs that up.

I'm on the fence if the backlog numbers are included or not as a newspaper(maybe Tribune of Examiner) said so in the past and they were forced to retract it due to 'further research'
EDIT: It was The Examiner. Compare http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2008/09/22/story72878.asp with http://www.irishexaminer.com/irishexaminer/pages/story.aspx-qqqg=ireland-qqqm=ireland-qqqa=ireland-qqqid=72959-qqqx=1.asp

The 38,000 people waiting for their dole claims to be processed are already included in official unemployment statistics, the Department of Social Affairs said yesterday.

However, it was incorrectly stated in yesterday’s Irish Examiner that the scale of unemployment could be worse than the live register indicated last month because these 37,923 outstanding claims were not included on the register.

In fact, the live register figures published each month includes all claims awaiting decision, as well as those already processed.

How many qualified economists are in the Dept of Finance? Think the answer is one!

yoshytoshy

dresden8 wrote: »

But to re-iterate the point, there are delays in Social Welfare because the Live Register is up 70 to 80% on the year. The unemployment rate has gone from 8.3% in December 2008 to 10.4% in February 2009.

That's 63,000 or so extra claims in 2 months. Not an inconsiderable number.

I'm not saying there isn't a huge increase ,or no work being done. I've heard sterling reports of how people are been dealt with ,which is great to hear.

My point is how the sums are used or abused in the up and coming mini-budget.
If the government butter it up now ,whats stopping them saying is worse than they thought at end of year ,then selling off god knows what or put us in a worse hole.

dresden8

yoshytoshy wrote: »

I'm not saying there isn't a huge increase ,or no work being done. I've heard sterling reports of how people are been dealt with ,which is great to hear.

My point is how the sums are used or abused in the up and coming mini-budget.
If the government butter it up now ,whats stopping them saying is worse than they thought at end of year ,then selling off god knows what or put us in a worse hole.

Oh, agreed on that one alright. At this stage they have to get this one right or we're really fncked.

If they come back in another 5 months and say this is really, really the final budget that will sort us out for this year, Hans in Dusseldorf won't feel inclined to give his money to the two Brians.

At that stage we can abandon all hope.

yoshytoshy

I'm not fully aware of how things like this are actually carried out in the dail.

Do the opposition have the same reports on figures that the government has ,before the budget ?

I.E. Can the opposition work on a budget themselves ,so they can compare how they would have done it ?

dresden8

yoshytoshy wrote: »

I'm not fully aware of how things like this are actually carried out in the dail.

Do the opposition have the same reports on figures that the government has ,before the budget ?

I.E. Can the opposition work on a budget themselves ,so they can compare how they would have done it ?

Generally, no.

That's why when the Minister for Finance starts to read his speech the opposition are frantically leafing through the copy they received 10 seconds earlier to find something to give out about in their rebuttal speeches.

This year the opposition got the "we're all in this together, so you have to take half the blame" briefing so, in this case, I don't know.

yoshytoshy

dresden8 wrote: »

Generally, no.

That's why when the Minister for Finance starts to read his speech the opposition are frantically leafing through the copy they received 10 seconds earlier to find something to give out about in their rebuttal speeches.

This year the opposition got the "we're all in this together, so you have to take half the blame" briefing so, in this case, I don't know.

It's a pitty ,it would show us a great deal about all parties.

thebman

dresden8 wrote: »

The live register is up something like 70 or 80% for the year. They're up to their t1ts.

So whats stopping a transfer of people from other departments that don't have enough to do and getting them trained to take on the roles.

HSE is full of administrators and some of them don't need to be there.

Time to make efficient use of existing government resources if possible.

gurramok

Backlog of 70,000 unemployment claims, that is bad :eek: http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0312/welfare.html

Daithinski

Offy wrote: »

I think we can, they seemed to have learnt their lesson after Haughty and Bertie. With punishments like they received I think all politicians will think long and hard before breaking the law again. After all look at the consequences they have suffered for all the brown envelopes and dirty dealings. So OP I think you can rest assured they have our best interests at heart.

I hope this is sarcasm, but I fear it isn't.

Our best interests at heart? Theres a first time for everything I suppose...

thebman

Daithinski wrote: »

I hope this is sarcasm, but I fear it isn't.

Our best interests at heart? Theres a first time for everything I suppose...

lol that was either sarcasm or WOW! :eek:

I'd assume sarcasm, nobody could think that

gearoidc

think we can, they seemed to have learnt their lesson after Haughty and Bertie. With punishments like they received I think all politicians will think long and hard before breaking the law again.

"Punishments"???

Exactly what "punishment" has our future Uachtarán received?

gearoidc

OOops.
Sorry. i missed the irony