Gilmore to reduce ministerial pay by €30k

BeeDI

Heard on radio this morning that Eamon Gilmore has said he will reduce ministeral pay by at least €30k pa.
I believe Lenny has also said he will take out the knife on budget day to pliticians pay in general, and I guess for appearances sake ministers pay in particular.
Of course the critics will say, it's easy for Lenny to cut ministers pay sharply as he and his FF cronies, will be out of office and so will not feel the pain AND, it is easy for Mr Gilmore to do likewise, as he and the Mrs. are sitting on a whole pile of dosh after the sale of the land in Galway to the VEC there.
Anyway, it should not be a case of reducing their ransom salaries by €30k, but rather reducing them TO €30k

dan_d

Yeah, but it looks a lot better if Gilmore voluntarily does it first, rather than having it enforced on him by a budget.Looks like he's .....something, I don't know.

Either way, while I do welcome it, I view any move like this by current politicians as promoting their own image and nothing else:rolleyes:.Why didn't he do it with last year's budget?? Why now??

RobAMerc

BeeDI wrote: »

Heard on radio this morning that Eamon Gilmore has said he will reduce ministeral pay by at least €30k pa.
I believe Lenny has also said he will take out the knife on budget day to pliticians pay in general, and I guess for appearances sake ministers pay in particular.
Of course the critics will say, it's easy for Lenny to cut ministers pay sharply as he and his FF cronies, will be out of office and so will not feel the pain AND, it is easy for Mr Gilmore to do likewise, as he and the Mrs. are sitting on a whole pile of dosh after the sale of the land in Galway to the VEC there.
Anyway, it should not be a case of reducing their ransom salaries by €30k, but rather reducing them TO €30k

I agree with how you feel about his salary level as a public servant, however, its very very begrudging and sadly very Irish to comment on the money him and his family made selling land, no matter who they sold it to.

Bob_Latchford

should be linked to minimum wage net take home, 10x shoulds good to me

Some rough calculations, feel free to say its bollix
If minimum wage take home about 10k a year. Taoiseach should take home about 100k, gross would it be something like 190k??

Ministers, say 8x, so 80k take home, 145k gross?? 25% cut just to get it in line if you think 1 minister should earn 8 minimum wages

The other area is expenses & extras. Pay cut without reform of expenses will just move the issue over to extravigant expenses

ixtlan

Bob_Latchford wrote: »

should be linked to minimum wage net take home, 10x shoulds good to me

I'd rather have it linked to the average industrial wage, which would be a much more indicative number of the country's wealth.

Ix.

Bob_Latchford

ixtlan wrote: »

I'd rather have it linked to the average industrial wage, which would be a much more indicative number of the country's wealth.

Ix.

That sounds good to

Tim Robbins

BeeDI wrote: »

Heard on radio this morning that Eamon Gilmore has said he will reduce ministeral pay by at least €30k pa.
I believe Lenny has also said he will take out the knife on budget day to pliticians pay in general, and I guess for appearances sake ministers pay in particular.
Of course the critics will say, it's easy for Lenny to cut ministers pay sharply as he and his FF cronies, will be out of office and so will not feel the pain AND, it is easy for Mr Gilmore to do likewise, as he and the Mrs. are sitting on a whole pile of dosh after the sale of the land in Galway to the VEC there.
Anyway, it should not be a case of reducing their ransom salaries by €30k, but rather reducing them TO €30k

Well his wife made some good money in the property boom, so Eamo should be fine.

sensibleken

Ususaly this debate goes as follows..

step 1: If were going to take a paycut so should ministers.

step 2: Labour anounce policy on reducing ministers pay. Response: Ah more poppulism from labour, they have no policies!!!

mrgaa1

you would hope that whatever new leader comes in that they reduce pay - after all the minimum wage has been cut which is supposed to create jobs and competitiveness - for government staff.
wouldn't it be a great example to the people of Ireland if the new government stated that they will lead by example and take no pay for one year - just tightly controlled expenses. It would make people look up and it would set an example to the rest of the watching world that we are serious and are looking to work our way out of the situation that the banks put us in.

thebman

I'd much rather see their pay being directly linked to the budget so if we post a deficit, their pay should go down by X percent for that year and if we post a surplus then they get a bonus.

This would force them to balance their desire for more money against building bypasses for their constituents to get re-elected.

macannrb

I'd prefer to see their pensions axed to be honest

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/politicians-get-pension-payments-on-top-of-salary-1623010.html

doc_17

Their pay and pensions both need cutting. They get far too much given their ability and intelligence

Bob_Latchford

thebman wrote: »

I'd much rather see their pay being directly linked to the budget so if we post a deficit, their pay should go down by X percent for that year and if we post a surplus then they get a bonus.

This would force them to balance their desire for more money against building bypasses for their constituents to get re-elected.

Why should only they benefit if there is a surplus and only them punished if there is a deficit?

Wouldnt a surplus be better going to "rainy day" or capital expenditure? If there is more than enough you can reduce tax across the board or fund free 3rd level education etc. Sur they can find better use than TD pay

Opposite with defict, dip into rain day fund or tax raises across the board

thebman

Bob_Latchford wrote: »

Why should only they benefit if there is a surplus and only them punished if there is a deficit?

Wouldnt a surplus be better going to "rainy day" or capital expenditure? If there is more than enough you can reduce tax across the board or fund free 3rd level education etc. Sur they can find better use than TD pay

Opposite with defict, dip into rain day fund or tax raises across the board

If there is a surplus the excess would go into a rainy day fund for when they don't have enough money so they can counter balance it.

However if they have to dig into the rainy day fund, they should be punished for it for poor decision making that lead to having to use the fund.

That way if we have a surplus, we can set part of it aside and there is a reward for the politicians to do this and if they use it up, they get punished.

The plus side to this is that as that you could have a rainy fund be something like a pension fund so in effect, the state would be ensuring we have enough to pay the state pension in the future if our population doesn't grow as necessary and there is an incentive there for current governments to do this instead of spend now, election soon, somebody else's problem later like we have now.

Maybe I should have explicitly stated that.

markpb

thebman wrote: »

I'd much rather see their pay being directly linked to the budget so if we post a deficit, their pay should go down by X percent for that year and if we post a surplus then they get a bonus.

The problem with this and the other proposal earlier to tie their wages to the minimum wage is that they're too easy to game. Tie it to minimum wage and you give the government an incentive to push up minimum wage which isn't always a good thing for the economy. Tie it to a budget surplus and they'll budget for large capital expenditure and delay it so it doesn't happen - hey presto, surplus.

thebman

markpb wrote: »

The problem with this and the other proposal earlier to tie their wages to the minimum wage is that they're too easy to game. Tie it to minimum wage and you give the government an incentive to push up minimum wage which isn't always a good thing for the economy. Tie it to a budget surplus and they'll budget for large capital expenditure and delay it so it doesn't happen - hey presto, surplus.

But you can't rig tax intake vs government expenditure unless your rigging the books TBH and in that case we will have a bigger problem.

Cutting capital expenditure if the money isn't there is exactly what I would be expecting them to do.

If the money isn't there, I don't want them to spend it. I don't see that as rigging the system but following the way I want it to work. We shouldn't be spending money we don't have.

And if they invest in infrastructure, they will lose votes. Basically you play the two things they want against each other. They want big wages and to walk the next election so you just force them to compromise between the two using the above system.

Bob_Latchford

You have to trust them not to rig the books. So transparancy is needed. If they are found to be rigging the books then Ireland chooses wether they want crooks or honest an TD at the next election.

No system is perfect or immune from abuse, trust people to do what is right and try and catch those that dont.

westtip

I think they have been TOLD to cut politicians pay (and probably hihg paid senior civil servants) by our European masters who are probably quiet rightly aghast at how members of what is effectively a large county council (the greater manchester argument) are paid as much as they are - I wonder how the Eurocrat civil servants and politician felt like in meetings looking across the table at these gombeens who had destroyed an entire country through bad governance. A penny for their thoughts:

"My god how much are these gob****es paid and they expect us to rescue them"

A german translation perhaps someone.

sollar

Geldgierig Dummkopfe, du hast vernichtet das land.

Deise Tom

BeeDI wrote: »

Heard on radio this morning that Eamon Gilmore has said he will reduce ministeral pay by at least €30k pa.
I believe Lenny has also said he will take out the knife on budget day to pliticians pay in general, and I guess for appearances sake ministers pay in particular.
Of course the critics will say, it's easy for Lenny to cut ministers pay sharply as he and his FF cronies, will be out of office and so will not feel the pain AND, it is easy for Mr Gilmore to do likewise, as he and the Mrs. are sitting on a whole pile of dosh after the sale of the land in Galway to the VEC there.
Anyway, it should not be a case of reducing their ransom salaries by €30k, but rather reducing them TO €30k

Isnt Mr Guilmore a very considerate man. There is what 15 or 16 ministers that he would take €30,000 off. What about the other 145 approx. What would he take off them. What would he take off all those on ministerial pensions, including those in his own party. And he would cut the amount of TD's we have. Dont the people of Ireland have to do this in a referendum not the Taoiseach of the day or a populist TD. In saying that I am sure right down the people of Ireland would go for it, and maybe would go for a bigger cut then what mr Guilmore is suggesting. And any suggestion he has could take a while to happen if we are to believe all he is telling us, as the numbers could not be dropped for two elections from today. That however could be sooner than some might think. I would say if Labour are involved in any government after the next election we will have a general election 1000 days or less after they take up their positions.

Deise Tom

RobAMerc wrote: »

I agree with how you feel about his salary level as a public servant, however, its very very begrudging and sadly very Irish to comment on the money him and his family made selling land, no matter who they sold it to.

Why should people not comment on the money he got. I am sure there is plenty on record where he had a lot to say about developers before it was found out that he was in with them in a round about way.

later12

The fact that this is 30k figure is the only statistic I have heard from Eamon Gilmore (with regard to his party's economic policies) is worrying.

I know what the Government want the debt:GDP ratio to be, I know what defecit they are currently runing, I know how many public sector redundancies that FG are proposing and I know how much VAT they propose to abolish. And all I know about Eamonn Gilmores figures, is that he's going to give Pat Rabitte a 30k paycut when they become junior coalition partners.

Slightly worrying that they only clearly communicated statistic that party actually gives doesn't really effect the public in any practical way.

PARKHEAD67

BeeDI wrote: »

Heard on radio this morning that Eamon Gilmore has said he will reduce ministeral pay by at least €30k pa.
I believe Lenny has also said he will take out the knife on budget day to pliticians pay in general, and I guess for appearances sake ministers pay in particular.
Of course the critics will say, it's easy for Lenny to cut ministers pay sharply as he and his FF cronies, will be out of office and so will not feel the pain AND, it is easy for Mr Gilmore to do likewise, as he and the Mrs. are sitting on a whole pile of dosh after the sale of the land in Galway to the VEC there.
Anyway, it should not be a case of reducing their ransom salaries by €30k, but rather reducing them TO €30k

TO 30K. Yes, thats more like it. Half of those crooks should be in jail FFS.

Dannyboy83

RobAMerc wrote: »

I agree with how you feel about his salary level as a public servant, however, its very very begrudging and sadly very Irish to comment on the money him and his family made selling land, no matter who they sold it to.

€210,000 per acre - 525K+ for 2.5 acres of land in East Galway.
Gilmore's wife = chief executive of Dun Laoghaire VEC
The land was NOT the first choice for the school.

I'm not saying something illegal has occurred, but it does seem there may be a conflict of interest here. It should be investigated.

Besides, profiteering such as the above would detract heavily from Gilmore's socialists credentials.

How can Gilmore now even comment on the events of the Celtic Pyramid?
How can Gilmore comment on the Irish Glass bottle site?
He'll simply be labelled a hypocritical champagne socialist.

later12

Jesus I feel like I'm reading an Edwardian era Irish Times editorial when I read some of these posts.

What are people suggesting, that he should have stepped in and controlled his wife in her feeble minded womanly abandon? What was she thinking? Probably just an ovarian cyst or something!