Aggression from SIPTU/IMPACT at UCD gates

qwert2

mad lad wrote: »

So I assume the anti-strike side agree with the recruitment embargo and cuts in the pay budget which has meant that colleges across Ireland have had to cut classes, lectures, tutorials, library hours and science labs.

This is an example of student myopia at its worst.

That's harsh. The St Vicent de Paul society had a successful homeless week there a while back, which was very well supported by students. Not much myopia around then

MissRealist

Pride Fighter wrote: »

Why cross the picket? There is nothing there atm. It's not ideal to be a scab.

I had labs that wouldn't be rescheduled. I respect the right to protest and strike but my grade is more important IMO...

mad lad

That's harsh. The St Vicent de Paul society had a successful homeless week there a while back, which was very well supported by students. Not much myopia around then

I wasn't talking about homelessness or charity.

indieJones

mad lad wrote: »

So I assume the anti-strike side agree with the recruitment embargo and cuts in the pay budget which has meant that colleges across Ireland have had to cut classes, lectures, tutorials, library hours and science labs.

This is an example of student myopia at its worst.

With your amazing foresight I assume you're quite happy with the IMF having to intervene and the country being bankrupted and being reduced back to a third world country.

I respect the right to protest but this thread is about highlighting the picket experienced by many was uncivil and aggressive. Not about whether my opinion or your opinion has more value.

mloc

mad lad wrote: »

So I assume the anti-strike side agree with the recruitment embargo and cuts in the pay budget which has meant that colleges across Ireland have had to cut classes, lectures, tutorials, library hours and science labs.

This is an example of student myopia at its worst.

Where is the money meant to come from? This is another reason why we need to examine the current student funding situation. Colleges are broke, the government is broke, the country is broke. Things have to change.

pwd

No strike in UL at all.
Outrageous to abuse people going into UCD. Doubt many of them were breaking the strike. Not surprising though. Manners are not a part of the culture there.

mad lad

mloc wrote: »

Where is the money meant to come from? This is another reason why we need to examine the current student funding situation. Colleges are broke, the government is broke, the country is broke. Things have to change.

Funding should come from those that have it.


From the OECDs education at a glance report

The Education at a Glance 2008 report shows Ireland coming 27th out of 29 countries when it comes to the amount of GDP per capita invested in each second-level student. The report also shows that spending on education increased by more than 80 per cent between 1995 and 2005, but GDP more than doubled.

In Ireland, the proportion of GDP spent on education decreased by 0.5 of a percentage point or more between 1995 and 2005, mainly as a result of the fall in spending on educational institutions as a percentage of GDP.

The proportion of Ireland’s GDP invested in education has dropped significantly from 5.2 per cent in 1995 to 4.6 per cent in 2005. The current OECD average for the proportion of GDP invested in education is 5.8 per cent.

The report also reveals:
Overall, Ireland ranks 30th out of 34 countries in terms of education expenditure as a percentage of GDP..

Re 'Bloated Public Service in general -

The OECDS (2008) report 'Towards an Integrated Public Service found that

Ireand has the third smallest total public expenditure as a percentage of GDP, (third to Korea and Mexico), and this figure has decreased over the past ten years. In comparison with other OECD countries therefore, Ireland has been able to deliver services with a Public Service that is relatively small given the size of the economy and labour force.

There should be 3 tax bands, inceases in non wealth creating areas such as on capital assests over 1 million and capital gains tax in general. A lot of the current healthcare policies should be scrapped, saving up to three-quarters of a billion euro in 2010. Co-location and the subsidising of private practice in public hospitals should be ended, consultants’ contracts should be renegotiated and pay should be capped at €150,000 per year. Doctors and pharmacies should be forced to prescribe generic drugs, public subsidies to private schools should be ended etc.

There is not shortage of measures, the question is a matter of who you target - Hugh Brady gets a a pay increase of 19% while staff members face paycuts. If all people earning over 100,00 per annum were forced to pay a tax rate of 43% it'd raise €3.2 billion alone (they pay an effective rate of 27% at the moment).

mloc

mad lad wrote: »

Funding should come from those that have it.

So what you're saying is you want all the wealth producing, economy stimulating members of the work force to emigrate while we pay the bloat even more. Typical socialist bs, tbh.

insert-gear

First of all any statistic comparing Ireland to any other country by using GDP is null and void. Ireland's GDP grossly over exaggerates how much money the country actually holds on to as most of the product is generated by foreign companies, particularly American. They repatriate the profits. If you want to look at GNP (gross national product, and the amount of money Ireland actually keeps), there are figures available (I think its on the OECD site also) that uses GNP to compare with other countries, and we are on a par with every other country.

So if you plan on getting high and mighty, I suggest you have some basic grasp of economics or social policy

With regards to Hugh Brady's pay increase, it's truly ridiculous that any pay increases should even be considered, especially for the top earners. We had less tutorials in certain subjects than previous years, meaning our results will suffer. They should be using that money to ensure UCD's students are the best possible, because if they turn out low standards, they will receive low standards in return

Zuffer

mad lad wrote: »

So I assume the anti-strike side agree with the recruitment embargo and cuts in the pay budget which has meant that colleges across Ireland have had to cut classes, lectures, tutorials, library hours and science labs.

This is an example of student myopia at its worst.

No, not at all. One does not imply the other. In fact, from a certain point of view, cuts in public sector pay means no/less job cuts which means more services.

When you think about it logically, the path the pro-strike side are leading us up is the one that will take us to more education cut backs. If you can't cut wages, you have to cut somewhere else.

mad lad

mloc wrote: »

So what you're saying is you want all the wealth producing, economy stimulating members of the work force to emigrate while we pay the bloat even more. Typical socialist bs, tbh.

Hardly, moving to The EU averages for taxation and public spending (of some countries which are now out of the recession) might be a decent place to start. It's hardly a recipe for socialism.

First of all any statistic comparing Ireland to any other country by using GDP is null and void.

Of course TNCs repatriot profits, GDP is a measure of the wealth created within a country. Obviously if you ignore the chunk of wealth created by the people in an economy that gets siphoned out, things look rosier.

The OECD uses GDP for comparative analyses for a reason.

If you can't cut wages, you have to cut somewhere else.

44% of public servants earn less than 30,000 per annum. There can be pay cuts in the public sector, but it's people at the top like Hugh Brady et al that should be the primary target. The government also has a serious problem on the income side of the equation - simply cutting pay won't solve that, it would add to deflation. Tax increases have a higher return to the Exchequer than public expenditure cuts and have a less deflationary impact than spending cuts (if you're taxing the right areas).

mloc

mad lad wrote: »

44% of public servants earn less than 30,000 per annum. There can be pay cuts in the public sector, but it's people at the top like Hugh Brady et al that should be the primary target. The government also has a serious problem on the income side of the equation - simply cutting pay won't solve that, it would add to deflation.

I'm pretty sure that figure is incorrect, certainly for full time staff.

You realise that without highly competitive (on an global scale) salaries for top staff, we simply won't have top staff.

Zuffer

mad lad wrote: »

but it's people at the top like Hugh Brady et al that should be the primary target.

You might be right here because when it come to Hugh Brady, Brian Cowen, et al, there might be an agency problem. That is, the people who set their salaries are not the same people who have to pay it.

To strip out the agency problem, I would like to ask you (and anyone else who cares to chip in) the following question:

Lets say I suddenly discovered that I was an amazing sculptor. And I sculpt an amazing piece of work - the Mona Lisa of sculpture. Now, to fully appreciate it you have to see it in the flesh so to speak. So I hire out a hall in Dublin, set up the piece of work in the middle, and charge €10 entry to see it.

Lets say that lots of people come to see it. They love it. When they see the work of art, they are spiritually enriched by it. They leave the hall walking on air. People say that they would have happily paid €100, or €1000, to see it. €10 is a bargain. For them, it is money well spent.
Of course, art isn't for everyone. Many people don't go to see it, and they spend their money elsewhere. But lets say, over the course of a year, over 100,000 pay to see the sculpture.

Lets say that, at the end of the year, after paying my expenses, I have €1,000,000 in cash. All received from willing people who were happy to pay it. My question is, am I entitled to all of this money? If not, what would be a fair amount of tax to pay?

P.S. If Robert Nozick or Wilt Chamberlain call, I'm not in.

insert-gear

mad lad wrote: »

Of course TNCs repatriot profits, GDP is a measure of the wealth created within a country. Obviously if you ignore the chunk of wealth created by the people in an economy that gets siphoned out, things look rosier.

The OECD uses GDP for comparative analyses for a reason.

They use it because no other country has as such an open and specialised country as we do. Its perfectly fair to use GDP to compare France and Germany, it is completely inaccurate to use it to compare France and Ireland

The OECD publishes comparative results using GNP for a reason

graduate

GNP is certainly preferable to use, but Ireland doesn't have particularly high educational expenditure using GNP as a measure either. We have a relatively young population by the standards of wealthy countries and a high level of participation in third level education, as a consequence spending per student is not great and it didn't rise much during the last decade.

insert-gear

Public expenditure as a proportion of Gross National Income. Source: Dept education and science

Ireland higher than UK and Germany. And is in or around the average.

mad lad

insert-gear wrote: »

Public expenditure as a proportion of Gross National Income. Source: Dept education and science

Ireland higher than UK and Germany. And is in or around the average.

I wouldn't use GNP but even if you do, expenditure on all levels of education accounted for 5.4 percent of GNP (4.6 percent of GDP). This compares with an OECD average of 5.8 percent.

OECD Education at a Glance report 2008

rantyface

I thought it was very insensitive of them. Hundreds of us will be unemployed graduates come June. Whinging about money to people who are worse off than you is low.