Spare a thought for Barry

Sleepy

Smiegal wrote: »

All I'd say about it cutting costs is that you cant keep cutting peoples wages over an over again... whatever about economics, it simply is not fair. At some stage you HAVE to start thinking about job cuts. I know the public sector is top heavy, I see it every day for Christs sake.

There was no need to go that far with the cuts, instead the Government should have begun to cut jobs... but of course that wouldn't suit them because then they would have an even bigger dole que...

I think it was more to do with the difficulty of imposing redundancies in the PS to be fair Smiegal. If the government had gone for widespread redundancies I think we'd have had an all-out strike by now.

Also, how do you handle redundancies without first embarking on a massive performance measurement project? If any redundancies are offered on a volunatary basis, services will suffer badly as, typically, only those who are employable elsewhere will take the package offered so you'll reduce the number of productive employees whilst keeping on the worthless ones and service will drop disproportionatly to the actual reduction in head count.

Personally, if I'd been in Cowen's position I'd have prioritised where cuts were to be made on a departmental basis and charged the relevant ministers with finding the cost savings within their own departments rather than trying to deal with the PS en masse. However, if I were in Cowen's position, I'd have a cabinet around me capable of implementing that.

I'd also have embarked on the creation of a "Department of Central Services" for the PS during the boom years which would have been created with the misssion to emalgamate as much as possible, if not all of, the IT, Finance and Admin support functions of the other departments into single central entities to reduce overlaps and cut out the replication of effort we see carried out in many of these areas.

Riskymove

ei.sdraob wrote: »

the graph is from Ronan Lyon's post after the last budget, who had a very detailed analysis on the subject

Thnak you, i can see its an attempt by him to portray the figures as large as possible for no real apparant reason

I'd rather we stick to using the more widely used figures to avoid confusion

ei.sdraob

Riskymove wrote: »

Thnak you, i can see its an attempt by him to portray the figures as large as possible for no real apparant reason

I'd rather we stick to using the more widely used figures to avoid confusion

go right ahead and make us a graph so

i wonder how you will try to cover-up the 25bln a year hole

Riskymove

ei.sdraob wrote: »

i wonder how you will try to cover-up the 25bln a year hole

why would I do that, the deficit is the same either way!

its just that pretty much everything else I have seen portrays the more traditional view of government expenditure figures (i.e. circa €60bn and €35bn for 2009) and using a different portrayal for no reason is only gonna cause some confusion

btw its not €25bn a year as the 2010 estimate is for a reduced deficit, which Mr Lyons seems to be identifying as around €19bn looking at his graph

Count Dooku

P. Breathnach wrote: »

We have been down this road so many times that I know all the twists and turns, and every pothole. Yes, there was a failure in regulation. But to try to fix all the blame on that is akin to making police responsible for all crime.

Why bring in the fantasm of public sector banks corrupted by politicians? We never had that, nor was it ever on any agenda. But in recent years we have had an increasing right-wing clamour in our society and strong advocacy of free markets. That is one of the reasons why the regulatory regime for banks was lightened. There is a belief out there that markets are self-correcting. That is true if you accept that recession is a market correction: it is, but the main point of governments intervening in economies is to try to soften such things.

When you read discussions here, you might be persuaded that everybody with an IQ greater than 85 could read the situation and saw the crash coming. I suspect much of that prescience is based on hindsight. If everybody saw it coming, then it wouldn't have been coming.

Barry is a victim of the bubble. So are scores of thousands of other people. Among them are people who are generally intelligent, well-informed, and cautious. They were duped by a conventional wisdom that emerged more or less spontaneously over a period of years.

As I mentioned before, you cannot have free markets combined with socialist ideas.
If government would save surplus from property bubble, rather then waist it for PS benchmarking, we could have deficit of budget about 8 Bn with 50 Bn in special fund. This is how most of oil producers are doing it.
And it would be no reason to discuss poor Barry, because he never could afford to buy so expensive house

Riskymove

Count Dooku wrote: »

If government would save surplus from property bubble, rather then waist it for PS benchmarking, we could have deficit of budget about 8 Bn with 50 Bn in special fund.

another gross exaggeration of the cost of benchmarking

The Government squandered the money it gained over the boom on many, many different areas, especially at election time!

ei.sdraob

Riskymove wrote: »

why would I do that, the deficit is the same either way!

its just that pretty much everything else I have seen portrays the more traditional view of government expenditure figures (i.e. circa €60bn and €35bn for 2009) and using a different portrayal for no reason is only gonna cause some confusion

btw its not €25bn a year as the 2010 estimate is for a reduced deficit, which Mr Lyons seems to be identifying as around €19bn looking at his graph

once again i would like to see your data and any graphs, so far im the only one backing up by posts with facts and references

heres some facts and info more for you

hole was was 25bln in 2009
and 19bln in 2010 is pretty much what the NTMA have forecast

http://www.ntma.ie/Publications/2010/ResultsAndBusinessReview2009.pdf

The NTMA raised €35.4 billion in long-term funding in 2009. This money was used to fund
the Exchequer deficit of €24.6 billion and to refinance a maturing €5 billion bond, leaving a
carryover of more than €5 billion in long-term funding available to finance the deficit in 2010.
The NTMA plans to raise up to €20 billion in the bond markets in 2010. This requirement is
significantly less than in 2009 because of a smaller projected Exchequer deficit of €18.7 billion
and a lower refinancing requirement of €1.2 billion.

more analysis here > http://www.finfacts.ie/irishfinancenews/article_1018770.shtml

the last budget was designed to save us 4bln and its seems to be on track to do so

if we caved into the unions and implemented their "plans" then spending would have risen in 2010 above 25bln as per their proposal to borrow more and we would endup in same position as Greece

Riskymove

ei.sdraob wrote: »

once again i would like to see your data and any graphs, so far im the only one backing up by posts with facts and references

heres some more for you

it was 25bln in 2009
and 19bln in 2010 is pretty much what the NTMA have forecast

whats all this about now...can you go back and read my replies to you and allow to sink in

I am not disagreeing at all about a €25bn deficit in 2009

even Mr Lyons himself acknowledges the traditional view of the figures when setting out why he decidied to portray them differently but as I say he is the only one to do this that i am aware of

if you look at any general media reporting or check out official papers on the Public Expenditure you will see the use of the traditional figures, i.e. that the €25bn deficit in 2009 was based on expenditure of c. €60bn and income of c. €35bn

I am just saying we should stick to these figures to avoid confusion

Smiegal

Sleepy wrote: »

I think it was more to do with the difficulty of imposing redundancies in the PS to be fair Smiegal. If the government had gone for widespread redundancies I think we'd have had an all-out strike by now.

Also, how do you handle redundancies without first embarking on a massive performance measurement project? If any redundancies are offered on a volunatary basis, services will suffer badly as, typically, only those who are employable elsewhere will take the package offered so you'll reduce the number of productive employees whilst keeping on the worthless ones and service will drop disproportionatly to the actual reduction in head count.

Personally, if I'd been in Cowen's position I'd have prioritised where cuts were to be made on a departmental basis and charged the relevant ministers with finding the cost savings within their own departments rather than trying to deal with the PS en masse. However, if I were in Cowen's position, I'd have a cabinet around me capable of implementing that.

I'd also have embarked on the creation of a "Department of Central Services" for the PS during the boom years which would have been created with the misssion to emalgamate as much as possible, if not all of, the IT, Finance and Admin support functions of the other departments into single central entities to reduce overlaps and cut out the replication of effort we see carried out in many of these areas.

Alot of good points in there.

What I'm essentiallly saying here is that Cowen went to far down the road of pay cuts and in doing so p****d off everyone in the public sector. What he should have done to reach his goal was introduce lesser cuts and brought in redundancies.

Either way you'll have strikes and industrial unrest. But at least it would be done with and people would get on with it because they would still have their jobs and would not want further redundancies - as opposed to the way he has done it which is still resulting in industrial unrest that will no doubt lead to further strikes before the year is out... and rightly so in my opinion

Smiegal

Jaysuz Barry... what have you started...:D

ei.sdraob

Riskymove wrote: »

whats all this about now...can you go back and read my replies to you and allow to sink in

I am not disagreeing at all about a €25bn deficit in 2009

even Mr Lyons himself acknowledges the traditional view of the figures when setting out why he decidied to portray them differently but as I say he is the only one to do this that i am aware of

if you look at any general media reporting or check out official papers on the Public Expenditure you will see the use of the traditional figures, i.e. that the €25bn deficit in 2009 was based on expenditure of c. €60bn and income of c. €35bn

I am just saying we should stick to these figures to avoid confusion

its ok

you are having a problem with Ronan using gross figures not net figures

as per his post he explains

ronanlyons wrote:

... To understand that, it’s necessary to go right back to basics with Ireland’s finances. For example, we all know that the Government will take in just €34bn this year while spending over €60bn, right? Wrong! Those figures are net figures, it turns out. To go back to basics, we need to look at the gross figures, i.e. count receipts such as PRSI and health levies as part of income, as opposed to netting them off against government expenditure. Doing that, total receipts for 2009 come to just over €50bn, while total expenditure will top €76bn ...

whether you use the gross or the net values
that doesnt change the shape of that line graph

which clearly illustrates the deteriorating condition of the govt expenditure.
up to the budget whose job was to put us on new track, and that it seems to have done

if we the govt listened and caved in to the unions then right now that graph would continue to separate, and we be in the same situation as Greece


once again its not that hard to understand that this budget was pivotal and as i have shown in other threads if the unions get their way and we return to same old then the **** would hit the fan very quickly


whats worse in all of this is seeing in 2009 NTMA borrow 5bln at high interest to payback existing debt alone, thats like going to your neighborhood loanshark and borrowing at 5% to payback another loan at 3%. borrowing money to payback existing loans is just downright crazy and shows how much more severe Ireland's situation is

/

Riskymove

ei.sdraob wrote: »

its ok

you are having a problem with Ronan using gross figures not net figures

as per his post he explains

I simply did not know where the figures came form but as posted above it became clear from his blog, however, he is the only one to present them as that and i just think we should use the more common figures to be consistent and avoid confusion

for example in the same thread you linked, in the very first post, a certain poster has put up graphs detailing expenditure of €60bn and income of €35bn in 2009!!

whether you use the gross or the net values
that doesnt change the shape of that line graph

I never said it did

which clearly illustrates the deteriorating condition of the govt expenditure.
up to the budget whose job was to put us on new track, and that it seems to have done

well obviously the government has reduced expenditure and also plans to reduce the deficit further through a further €4bn in the next budget

ei.sdraob

Riskymove wrote: »

I simply did not know where the figures came form but as posted above it became clear from his blog, however, he is the only one to present them as that and i just think we should use the more common figures to be consistent and avoid confusion

for example in the same thread you linked, in the very first post, a certain poster has put up graphs detailing expenditure of €60bn and income of €35bn in 2009!!

fair enough, whether gross or net figures are used the picture stays the same

Riskymove wrote: »

I never said it did

i taught you did, apologies then

Riskymove wrote: »

well obviously the government has reduced expenditure and also plans to reduce the deficit further through a further €4bn in the next budget

and the faster we get balance out the budget the better we all be

i have a huge problem with a mortgage being taken out every year in my name and every taxpayer in this country which is now up to 38,300 per taxpayer

and whats worse theres nothing to show for this mortgage


theres an interesting post on politics.ie

the Luas cost 770 million ie 385 per line. we are borrowing 25,000 million this year which would build 65 luas lines.

a bit daft I know, but I think it gets across the scale of the situation we're in.

Here is what dublin would would look like with 65 new Luas lines. mAP not accurate!

there are plenty of other uses for 25bln that i can think of, in business you do not borrow money to pay wages, you only borrow on capital projects

P. Breathnach

Count Dooku wrote: »

As I mentioned before, you cannot have free markets combined with socialist ideas.

Just because you mentioned it before does not make it true. There is a vast range of possibilities between extreme socialism and extreme capitalism.

If government would save surplus from property bubble, rather then waist it for PS benchmarking, we could have deficit of budget about 8 Bn with 50 Bn in special fund. This is how most of oil producers are doing it.
And it would be no reason to discuss poor Barry, because he never could afford to buy so expensive house

Yes, of course it would have been wise for the government to adopt counter-cyclical measures. But it is wrong to suggest that benchmarking was the reason why it didn't: you could equally point to the tax-cutting agenda which was followed even when the demand for tax reductions had been largely sated, or to grandiose or ill-controlled spending programmes, or to many other things. In fact, if the government had been implementing counter-cyclical policies, the impetus for benchmarking might not have existed.

Count Dooku

Smiegal wrote: »

Alot of good points in there.

What I'm essentiallly saying here is that Cowen went to far down the road of pay cuts and in doing so p****d off everyone in the public sector. What he should have done to reach his goal was introduce lesser cuts and brought in redundancies.

1) It is cheaper to fire public servants, when their pay is reduced. Now he can pay for 15% more redundancies, then year ago
2) AFAIK, it is not so easy to fire pre-95 public servants

SkepticOne

Smiegal wrote: »

Alot of good points in there.

What I'm essentiallly saying here is that Cowen went to far down the road of pay cuts and in doing so p****d off everyone in the public sector. What he should have done to reach his goal was introduce lesser cuts and brought in redundancies.

Either way you'll have strikes and industrial unrest. But at least it would be done with and people would get on with it because they would still have their jobs and would not want further redundancies - as opposed to the way he has done it which is still resulting in industrial unrest that will no doubt lead to further strikes before the year is out... and rightly so in my opinion

Only if they carried out all the redundancies in one go, and I don't think that would happen for two reasons: firstly, the redundancy payments would be so huge, and secondly it is not the way the government is currently carrying out the cuts to expenditure. They are making just enough cuts to keep the lenders happy so that they can continue borrowing. A bit this year, a bit more next year and so on. This is the way they would also behave with the redundancies. Every year would be the year they "turn the corner" only to find out later on that things have got worse and further cuts are necessary.

The other point is fairness. If you get made redundant, it is a sudden blow and you may end up ruined. Barry, for example, though he may moan about being a little worse off, is far better off than being on the dole. How is he going to pay for his luxury apartment on the dole? Redundancies are also likely to hit those who have the shortest length of service disproportionately. Again, unfair.

Finally, the government still has to pay these people a very high unemployment benefit by international standers for doing nothing partly undermining the cost savings (although social welfare will probably be reduced over time).

There may in the end need to be redundancies but other avenues need to be explored first. What I would suggest is that salaries in the public sector are reduced until they are comparable with the approximately equivalent in the private sector. Then a further adjustment should be made to account for the greater job security afforded public sector workers. Also, there should be an end to automatic increments until the crisis is over. This should happen quickly rather than dragging out the pain for several years.

FlashGordon1969

Most people wont lose their jobs so the constant refarin of Private sector losing jobs wears a biut thin...

MaceFace

FlashGordon1969 wrote: »

Most people wont lose their jobs so the constant refarin of Private sector losing jobs wears a biut thin...

Very true, but most have the threat hanging over them, and that is very significant.

Smiegal

SkepticOne wrote: »

What I would suggest is that salaries in the public sector are reduced until they are comparable with the approximately equivalent in the private sector. Then a further adjustment should be made to account for the greater job security afforded public sector workers. Also, there should be an end to automatic increments until the crisis is over. This should happen quickly rather than dragging out the pain for several years.

One problem with that scenario... A huge proportion of the public sector (I would imagine) is made up of frontline staff. Some do have jobs that are comparable to the Private sector and as such should be paid equally.

But for those who don't eg. firesfighters, nurses (to an extent [private nursing homes & hospitals etc...]), guards. Its fair to say that these professions/vocations are not paid in line with the average industrial wage. I'd be interested to hear your justification on reducing there pay??? Or would you at all?? (Not meant to be a retorical question)...

Also... why should anyone have to pay for job security? Sounds absurd to me? I can understand why people in the private sector would want it and perhaps even be jealous of it to an extent (given the times we live in)... but sorry guys, and I dont mean to be harsh here... but tough s**t... I mean if its that attractive now then why wasn't it that attractive in the boom times and as such, why didn't you go for a job in the public sector (in which jobs were plentyfull)?

MaceFace

Smiegal wrote: »

One problem with that scenario... A huge proportion of the public sector (I would imagine) is made up of frontline staff. Some do have jobs that are comparable to the Private sector and as such should be paid equally.

But for those who don't eg. firesfighters, nurses (to an extent [private nursing homes & hospitals etc...]), guards. Its fair to say that these professions/vocations are not paid in line with the average industrial wage. I'd be interested to hear your justification on reducing there pay??? Or would you at all?? (Not meant to be a retorical question)...

Also... why should anyone have to pay for job security? Sounds absurd to me? I can understand why people in the private sector would want it and perhaps even be jealous of it to an extent (given the times we live in)... but sorry guys, and I dont mean to be harsh here... but tough s**t... I mean if its that attractive now then why wasn't it that attractive in the boom times and as such, why didn't you go for a job in the public sector (in which jobs were plentyfull)?

NO NO NO NO NO!

Here is what I remember of "before the boom".
I work in IT, and when things hit the fan in 2000, people in my place were let go.
Some people voluntarily left because they didn't want the pressure of being made redundant hanging over them, and applied to the civil service.
A friend done this and they had to take a 15% pay cut. However, it was not seen as a pay cut because the other benefits which working there entailed - not as much pressure for deadlines, won't be sacked or made redundant, shorter hours, more time off, etc, etc.

I considered doing likewise - to get out of the rat race and hit easy street, but I decided against it because your basically giving up any chance you have of getting to the top in your field.

The amount of pay that a job offers should only be enough to attract enough of the right candidates to the position.
Why on earth would you pay more than you have to?

Smiegal

Nidot wrote: »

Yes but also the government earn the tax take from Mr. A's salary.

I don't think we should start with job cuts, what alot of people are suggesting is reform of the way public services are operated. This can be done by changing work practices and and working terms. Yes these reforms may not be agreed to (as we can see from the opposition of the unions). But potentially as the Taoiseach and several ministers have suggested, if these reforms were to deliver the necessary savings then there would potentially be no need for cuts in base pay levels.

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I never said to start with cutting jobs.

I said, yes cut wages, but not to the extent they have been cut - make a fair cut to wages and then start to cut jobs and then revisit the unpaid leave scenario again... there are some professions that would simply not be able to avail of this... ie teachers

Riskymove

Smiegal wrote: »

One problem with that scenario... A huge proportion of the public sector (I would imagine) is made up of frontline staff. Some do have jobs that are comparable to the Private sector and as such should be paid equally.

But for those who don't eg. firesfighters, nurses (to an extent [private nursing homes & hospitals etc...]), guards. Its fair to say that these professions/vocations are not paid in line with the average industrial wage. I'd be interested to hear your justification on reducing there pay??? Or would you at all?? (Not meant to be a retorical question)...

Also... why should anyone have to pay for job security? Sounds absurd to me? I can understand why people in the private sector would want it and perhaps even be jealous of it to an extent (given the times we live in)... but sorry guys, and I dont mean to be harsh here... but tough s**t... I mean if its that attractive now then why wasn't it that attractive in the boom times and as such, why didn't you go for a job in the public sector (in which jobs were plentyfull)?

no offense mate

but all these issues have been argued, shouted, pondered etc with many bannings and tantrums along the way

You really shouldn't be dragging all these up again.

I am guessing you ar e anew user (rather than a re-reg), do some searches and read the background to many of theses issues; if everyone starts getting into these issues here, its the end of the thread

Smiegal

MaceFace wrote: »

NO NO NO NO NO!

Here is what I remember of "before the boom".
I work in IT, and when things hit the fan in 2000, people in my place were let go.
Some people voluntarily left because they didn't want the pressure of being made redundant hanging over them, and applied to the civil service.
A friend done this and they had to take a 15% pay cut. However, it was not seen as a pay cut because the other benefits which working there entailed - not as much pressure for deadlines, won't be sacked or made redundant, shorter hours, more time off, etc, etc.

I considered doing likewise - to get out of the rat race and hit easy street, but I decided against it because your basically giving up any chance you have of getting to the top in your field.

The amount of pay that a job offers should only be enough to attract enough of the right candidates to the position.
Why on earth would you pay more than you have to?

Sorry MaceFace but I'm completely missing your point here?? Could you clarify please?

WalterMitty

Smiegal wrote: »

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I never said to start with cutting jobs.

I said, yes cut wages, but not to the extent they have been cut - make a fair cut to wages and then start to cut jobs and then revisit the unpaid leave scenario again... there are some professions that would simply not be able to avail of this... ie teachers

SMIEgal do you not realise that we pay our public sector so much more than comparable countries? Look at Finland where doctors get less than Irish Gardai! And Finland is a much more economically advanced country than us with higher taxes and cost of living. Even during the bubble years there was a massive demand for jobs like gardai and fire brigade( thousands applying for a few hundred positions, this is a fact) so they could easily drop wages and still attract enough suitable qualified people. I agree the top paid people in public sector like consulant doctors,senior civil servants should have gotten much bigger cuts but theres such a large number on 30-60k that that range of earners had to be hit hard. Public sector pay bill has more than doubled in a decade with all the pay agreements and benchmarking( which was not neccesary as public sector wasnt behind private when security and pensions were factored in).
We cant keep paying the huge numbers of nurses,teachers, gardai etc an average of 50k a year when their equivalents in rest eurozone get around 30k on average, to do so will bankrupt the nation.

Smiegal

Riskymove wrote: »

no offense mate

but all these issues have been argued, shouted, pondered etc with many bannings and tantrums along the way

You really shouldn't be dragging all these up again.

I am guessing you ar e anew user (rather than a re-reg), do some searches and read the background to many of theses issues; if everyone starts getting into these issues here, its the end of the thread

No offence taken.

If you look at where I entered the thread I quoted a number of posts which existed from the start of the thread where I had issue with them.

I'm of the impression that the subject of this this thread is about the letter "Barry" wrote and as such public sector pay, cuts etc??

If the subject has changed direction then I've missed the junction...

Riskymove

Smiegal wrote: »

I'm of the impression that the subject of this this thread is about the letter "Barry" wrote and as such public sector pay, cuts etc??

If the subject has changed direction then I've missed the junction...

It has gone off on a couple of tangents from the original point (i.e. that Barry cannot see his problem is taking out an unmanageable mortgage rather than his pay cut)

However, a couple of the thigs you have now raised will be seen as nothing more than flamebait given what's happened in previous threads


EDIT: see other reactions so far

MaceFace

Smiegal wrote: »

Sorry MaceFace but I'm completely missing your point here?? Could you clarify please?

You have suggested that people should not have to pay for job security, or that there should be benchmarking with peope in the private sector.

I say rubbish to that. A position should only pay a figure that is enough to entice a person to take the job.
A nurse in a public hospital should not be benchmarked against a nurse in a private hospital. If she wants the pay and conditions of a private hospital, let him join a private hospital.
Only if the nurses of a high enough caliber are not joining and staying should the pay be increased.

Any before I am accused of being a public sector basher - this goes for someone in the private sector as well. If you want job security and a guaranteed pension, join the public sector.

Smiegal

MaceFace wrote: »

You have suggested that people should not have to pay for job security, or that there should be benchmarking with peope in the private sector.

I say rubbish to that. A position should only pay a figure that is enough to entice a person to take the job.
A nurse in a public hospital should not be benchmarked against a nurse in a private hospital. If she wants the pay and conditions of a private hospital, let him join a private hospital.
Only if the nurses of a high enough caliber are not joining and staying should the pay be increased.

Any before I am accused of being a public sector basher - this goes for someone in the private sector as well. If you want job security and a guaranteed pension, join the public sector.

I get ya... I think, basicly your saying that irregardless of what sector a job is in (public/private) the money should only be enough so as to entice someone to apply for the job?

Grand.... Dont see how that was worth posting though... I mean yeah if your living in an ideal world and all that ... grand... Thats just stating the obvious.

WalterMitty

Theres a large section of those unemployed now who would be qualifed and capable of doing public sector jobs and would take those jobs even if pay was 30% less than current rates. Every year the recession goes on more and more capable intelligent young people leave school and colleges and cant get jobs in private sector let alone the cosseted public sector.

P. Breathnach

WalterMitty wrote: »

Theres a large section of those unemployed now who would be qualifed and capable of doing public sector jobs and would take those jobs even if pay was 30% less than current rates...

And equally would be happy to take a private sector job at less than the current rates of pay. It's called the race to the bottom.