Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie
Hi there,
There is an issue with role permissions that is being worked on at the moment.
If you are having trouble with access or permissions on regional forums please post here to get access: https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058365403/you-do-not-have-permission-for-that#latest

UK public sector pay discussed on BBC Questiontime

  • 08-10-2010 10:05am
    #1
    Japer
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 792 ✭✭✭


    Anyone see the debate on UK public sector pay on Questiontime last night? What surprised me was not the fact that the UK government want to cut their public sector expenditure in some departments by 25%, but by the speaker who said 50% of the staff in Birmingham city council are on a salary of less than £ 17,500 per year ! Thats 20,000 euro per year. In case we forget, most of the population of Ireland could fit in a city the size of Manchester or Birmingham, for that matter. They are also a G7 country, and second only to Germany as a net contributer to EC funds over the past few decades. Flick back to RTE , and the news is about some of our public servants ( eg FAS ) on the overseas junkets etc, and some expenses and waste making UK public sector salaries - which some people there think are high - look like chickenfeed.
    No wonder our government struggles to borrow money on ten year loans , even at double the interest rate the UK government has to pay when it borrows money. I guess the difference, in the eyes of the people who still lend our government money, even at extortianite rates, is that their economy does not spend 5 quid ( in public expenditure ) for every 3 quid it takes in taxes. How much longer will our government be able to borrow money at all, when it spends on average 50k per public servant, and when some of our public servants are higher paid than the UK prime minister ( who is on call 24/7, is a potential target 24/7 and does not go on the tear with de lads in a Galway hotel until 3.30 in the morning and address the nation at 8.45 ). The UK prime minister gave a great speech at his annual conference the other day, I wonder how much the cuts in expenditure over there will turn out ?


Comments

  • #2
    murphaph
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,050 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    I wish David Cameron was our Taoiseach tbh.


  • #3
    dan_d
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,819 ✭✭✭dan_d


    Wouldn't necessarily go that far. But it's interesting to see that, having faced up to the idea that there has to be cuts and there has to be a so-called "austerity budget", they're rolling up their sleeves and doing it. Even if it took them a couple of years to get there.

    As opposed to us, who did a bit of posturing a few years ago, got a slap on the the back from everyone for how great we were to face our problems, and now, 2 years later, are still debating what to do next...and none of the solutions seems to involve thinking along the lines of "we pay people too much money and our tax intake is too small to maintain this"...what will we do??
    Meanwhile the mountain of debt grows bigger and bigger by the day....


Advertisement