Prime Time agitprop and the madness of "social solidarity"

Permabear

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stimpson

Pot calling the kettle black. Anyone know what RTE pays it's cleaners?

ei.sdraob

Permabear wrote: »

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Comrade, if self-employed then you should pay yourself as much as a nanny (and no more) and "procure" the rest of your earnings via more tax efficient means and various loopholes, instead of paying higher income tax bands and various "social solidarity" charges.

Permabear

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Duffy the Vampire Slayer

stimpson wrote: »

Pot calling the kettle black. Anyone know what RTE pays it's cleaners?

I don't but I'll assume they're not in the same league as Pat Kenny.

motherriley

Permabear wrote: »

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Ireland discriminates against older people because they give UK free transport to travel in the republic but will not allow irish people that holds irish passport that live in the UK to travel free on travel in the republic.:mad:

Scofflaw

It's silly and it's populist, but it's hardly 'socialism'. It appeals to the same instincts as socialism, that's all.

amused,
Scofflaw

The thing that annoys me the most about prime time is that it could be a great way of educating people if only it wasn't so silly and sensationalist at times.

The example that got on my nerves was the one about mortgage arrears....Pat gave a figure's BUT neglected to say how many were sup prime mortgages ( always going to be a problem ) nor did he give the figure's for property investment mortgages that went wrong

In others words the information that might have been useful i.e how many NONE sub prime mortgages and NONE property investment mortgages are in arrears wasn't mentioned at all.

beeftotheheels

One second, this thread has been bothering me all morning and I couldn't figure out why but the penny just dropped.

Did Permabear really start a thread which implicitly approves of certain public sector remuneration strategies i.e. those at the NTMA?

Surely everyone, from the cleaner on €10k to the CEO on €xm should be permitted to criticize public sector remuneration, and given the state of our deficit and the need to cut across the board "social cohesion" is as good a reason as any for justifying criticism of public sector remuneration.

irishh_bob

motherriley wrote: »

Ireland discriminates against older people because they give UK free transport to travel in the republic but will not allow irish people that holds irish passport that live in the UK to travel free on travel in the republic.:mad:

pensioners in ireland have free travel on a national basis , afaik , pensioners in the uk only have free travel within a certain area , also , pensioners here recieve double what thier counterparts in the uk recieve

Permabear

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beeftotheheels

Permabear wrote: »

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But you see you're acknowledging here that we need a comparable, while every comparable is inherently flawed.

So I would argue that comparing public sector to private sector is just wrong (and part of the deficit problem) because they are inherently different creatures, and even if we were to compare them then such bench marking would have to take into account both job security and pensions (which it never did).

Comparing Ireland to Moldova suffers from the obvious flaw of failing to take into account the cost of living.

Comparing Ireland to an OECD/ EU average percentage of average industrial wage makes more sense, but still fails to take into account the fact that the OECD/ EU average state is not bankrupt.

So, why not base your arguments on a sense of social justice. Not that the NTMA officials should not be paid any more than the cleaning lady, and I really doubt that anyone would make that argument. The cleaning lady might have children that she wants to do well, and go to university, and get a good job, and earn more than her. But make the case that since we are bankrupt, we as a society, have to pay less to our public sector, and fairness is a very strong argument in favor of that.

Of course fairness also suggests that there should be additional private sector involvement through increased taxation etc where I appreciate that we will never have a meeting of minds.

motherriley

irishh_bob wrote: »

pensioners in ireland have free travel on a national basis , afaik , pensioners in the uk only have free travel within a certain area , also , pensioners here recieve double what thier counterparts in the uk recieve

Pensioners in UK can only travel within their borough and cannot travel outside their borough on trains and there is restriction times also on free travel. I also agree that pensioners gets in Ireland get a lot more than pensioners in UK but the UK pensons is the lowest in EU.

AFAIK pensioners from the NI which part of it is still part of the UK and they get free travel in UK and Republic of Ireland as well, I think that is discriminatory towards irish pensioners in UK:mad:

Scofflaw

motherriley wrote: »

Pensioners in UK can only travel within their borough and cannot travel outside their borough on trains and there is restriction times also on free travel. I also agree that pensioners gets in Ireland get a lot more than pensioners in UK but the UK pensons is the lowest in EU.

AFAIK pensioners from the NI which part of it is still part of the UK and they get free travel in UK and Republic of Ireland as well, I think that is discriminatory towards irish pensioners in UK:mad:

motherriley, that's entirely off-topic. You've said your piece, you've had an answer, further posts on a completely different point are irrelevant, off-topic, and will be deleted. If you want to discuss the inequities in free travel schemes for pensioners, start a thread on it.

moderately,
Scofflaw

Permabear

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Pharaoh1

Permabear wrote: »

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Agree that this is the type of reasonable comparison that we should be making but this would make far too much sense. It would also reveal an uncomfortable truth for many so-called middle and lower income groups.

But there are a couple of other relevant points that rarely get aired:

- In most organisations both public and private those at the top set the salaries. This being the case is it feasible to stop the ever increasing gap (in most organisations) between those at the top and those at the bottom given the (imo) natural selfishness of (most) humans.
- The practice of percentage pay increases causes an ever widening gap. Throw in the impact of increments especially in the PS and the percentage increase on top of these extra payments and the gap widens further.

beeftotheheels

Permabear wrote: »

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Now come on, I'm not talking social justice arguments of the looney left here, clearly a special needs assistant who helps one child is not of more benefit to society than a CEO who expands and creates employment for 5,000 people (and I don't agree with us having SNAs at the moment, we cannot afford them and I really question their contribution or indeed the cost to having children with special needs attend special needs schools because children with special needs are still quite capable of being members of society outside school hours).

But, we cannot decide tomorrow that we can afford to pay x,000 in the public sector €35,000 tomorrow, no more and no less. That would be daft. We have to pay for certain skills in the public sector, but what we don't have to do is to benchmark those roles against the private sector. I'm waiting for a particular public sector role to be advertised, and once it is I will consider applying for it.

It will pay less than I earn, but I think at the moment it is a role that I want. If the pay scale was the average industrial wage would I be applying, not a chance, but since it is about 70% of my salary that's a trade off I'm happy with. While in the private sector I fully believe I should be paid what I am worth, if I chose to move to the public sector then I should not, and one of the reasons why I should not is that it is unpalatable socially for senior public servants to be paid many many multiples of the average industrial wage.

So, no one actually suggested bench marking the salaries in the NTMA against those of cleaners, they simply took into account the views of a cleaner on the fairness of public sector remuneration, which is entirely reasonable given that she is a voter (and indirect taxpayer).

HivemindXX

beeftotheheels wrote: »

...clearly a special needs assistant who helps one child is not of more benefit to society than a CEO who expands and creates employment for 5,000 people...

Luckily your sugarplum fairy CEO will be earning a huge multiple of what a SNA is so that's ok. How much is a CEO who runs their company in to the ground causing 5,000 people to lose their jobs and their homes worth? I'm guessing they still get a very nice benefit package.

BornToKill

beeftotheheels wrote: »

I don't agree with us having SNAs at the moment, we cannot afford them and I really question their contribution or indeed the cost to having children with special needs attend special needs schools because children with special needs are still quite capable of being members of society outside school hours

It detracts from your argument that you don't know what Special Needs Assistants actually do.

beeftotheheels

HivemindXX wrote: »

Luckily your sugarplum fairy CEO will be earning a huge multiple of what a SNA is so that's ok. How much is a CEO who runs their company in to the ground causing 5,000 people to lose their jobs and their homes worth? I'm guessing they still get a very nice benefit package.

While that company is owned by investors it is for them to set the rules on what they are prepared to pay and what terms and conditions they attach to the employment contract.

That's really not up to the government. All business involves taking some risk, sometimes things go wrong without the CEO necessarily having done anything which would ahve breached his employment contract.

Now businesses that take too much risk, businesses that are bailed out with taxpayers funds, once we own them we should set the employment terms and conditions and not necessarily benchmark to the private sector.

beeftotheheels

BornToKill wrote: »

It detracts from your argument that you don't know what Special Needs Assistants actually do.

I don't believe I ever wrote a job description for an SNA, perhaps you could point it out to me?

If you object to my criticizing the role of SNAs let me expand. I have a sibling who was educated before the advent of SNAs and so went to a special needs school where he learned to read and write etc. He was always, and still is, a fully paid up member of the community where he has lived all his life.

So, if he were going to school today an SNA would have to be hired for him, to keep him in mainstream education (although deprive him of specialized teachers trained to deal with children with learning disabilities), for limited benefit (since I don't see his segregated education has left him with any lasting side effects), and for a cost to the taxpayer (given it is a small rural school with no other children with learning disabilities).

Hence I personally do not think SNAs are a necessity, they are a nice to have.

If you are seriously trying to argue that a SNA is as beneficial to society as the CEO of a large employer then I am just going to have to disagree with you, I'm not entirely convinced they are of benefit to children with special needs in many cases.

View

Permabear wrote: »

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No. You should pay your nanny more than you pay yourself and borrow to make up any budgetary shortfall you incur in the process. Lest anyone query your math, blame it all on the banks ad nauseum as it will distract most people...

murphaph

motherriley wrote: »

Ireland discriminates against older people because they give UK free transport to travel in the republic but will not allow irish people that holds irish passport that live in the UK to travel free on travel in the republic.:mad:

There shouldn't be any free travel scheme at all. People over retirement age should be offered a discount on travel as is done here in Germany, no free schemes here.

Northern Ireland laughed at us when we asked them to accept our (totally untraceable) free travel passes as part of a joint scheme. Up north the free travel is at least fully regulated and you have to tag on a bus etc. to use it.

Sand

beeftotheheels wrote: »

But, we cannot decide tomorrow that we can afford to pay x,000 in the public sector €35,000 tomorrow, no more and no less. That would be daft. We have to pay for certain skills in the public sector, but what we don't have to do is to benchmark those roles against the private sector.

Why is it daft to limit public sector wages to what the state can afford when the only benchmark worth considering is what we can afford to pay.

hmmm

beeftotheheels wrote: »

is that it is unpalatable socially for senior public servants to be paid many many multiples of the average industrial wage.

Unpalatable socially for who? The Joe Duffy rabble who seem to have time at 2.30pm in the afternoon to rant about the market wages being paid to attract top talent.

We can fill the top echelons of our government and public sector with unqualified people who are earning a Joe Duffyite/SF approved salary and accept the inevitable mediocrity or incompetence as the real price to pay, or we can run the government like a proper business which should offer services to the public at reasonable prices in an efficient manner.

I hear the counter argument already that "we paid high wages and got mediocrity anyway" which is largely true, but we shouldn't accept that a dysfunctional public service is an excuse for throwing our hands up in the air and walking away. We need to recruit proper talent, largely external of the PS and their institutionalised attitudes, and we need to empower them to deliver change.

Sand

I hear the counter argument already that "we paid high wages and got mediocrity anyway" which is largely true, but we shouldn't accept that a dysfunctional public service is an excuse for throwing our hands up in the air and walking away. We need to recruit proper talent, largely external of the PS and their institutionalised attitudes, and we need to empower them to deliver change.

Good, so you should then recognise that theres a hell of a lot more to getting a good performance out of a team or an individual than paying them a shag load of money. Lets explore those aspects first, given we dont have a shag load of money its pretty much a decision made for us.

hmmm

Sand wrote: »

Lets explore those aspects first, given we dont have a shag load of money its pretty much a decision made for us.

We don't have to do one or the other, we will have to do both simultaneously. We can't have Joe the Plumber running the HSE or we'll have dead people everywhere, neither should we have Fintan the 30 year Department of Health veteran who has a 2nd class degree in sociology running it. We need to get people with a track record in delivering change and we need to pay the going rate.

Sand

@hmmmm

We don't have to do one or the other, we will have to do both simultaneously. We can't have Joe the Plumber running the HSE or we'll have dead people everywhere, neither should we have Fintan the 30 year Department of Health veteran who has a 2nd class degree in sociology running it. We need to get people with a track record in delivering change and we need to pay the going rate.

We do have to do one actually. We dont have any money. So world class wages is no longer an option. We are going to have to find ways of doing more for less. We are no longer competing for "world class talent" (which funnily enough always seems to be found inside the existing board without the need for a world class search...) so we dont need to pay world class wages. We are a small, poor, heavily indebted country and we need to set our expectations to match.

Our ceiling is what we can afford. You cannot pay people with aspirations. We will have to find ways to motivate people with more than cash. Given you can find hundreds of thousands of people happy to travel to foreign countries, kill people they have no particular disagreement with and risk life and limb for wages that are often little better than a plumbers I think theres a lot of scope for getting people motivated for 6 figure salaries that are closer to 100K than 1 million.

hmmm

Sand wrote: »

Our ceiling is what we can afford.

I don't disagree with your central argument that we can only pay what we can afford. Where I disagree is that I think middle and in particular lower paid PS workers are on the whole overpaid for what they do, and we should make savings in that area. The salaries at the top echelons of the PS are what it would take to attract good talent and should be maintained, but we do have a problem where jobsworths are being promoted to receive those salaries.

southsiderosie

hmmm wrote: »

We can fill the top echelons of our government and public sector with unqualified people who are earning a Joe Duffyite/SF approved salary and accept the inevitable mediocrity or incompetence as the real price to pay, or we can run the government like a proper business which should offer services to the public at reasonable prices in an efficient manner.

hmmm wrote: »

I don't disagree with your central argument that we can only pay what we can afford. Where I disagree is that I think middle and in particular lower paid PS workers are on the whole overpaid for what they do, and we should make savings in that area. The salaries at the top echelons of the PS are what it would take to attract good talent and should be maintained, but we do have a problem where jobsworths are being promoted to receive those salaries.

I really disagree with this. In most countries, public sector pay is lower than the private sector, even at the top end of the job/educational scale, because generally public sector employees work fewer/set hours, have better health and pension benefits, and more job security. There are plenty of people who are willing to make that tradeoff, particularly women with families. For example, in the US, public sector lawyers are disproportionately female - these are women with degrees from top-tier law schools who are opting out of the high-paying high-flying private firms for 9-5 jobs. In other countries, there is a great deal of social prestige associated with being a high-level bureaucrat, so they are able to keep good people despite the lower wages.

The non-profit sector is another example - there are plenty of people who are willing to make a LOT less money than they would in the private sector because they really believe in what they are doing and enjoy the work.

Security, hours, desirability and social prestige all tie into why people are willing to take a paycut to do certain types of work. The assumption that this would lead to hemorrhaging of talent I think is overblown.

View

hmmm wrote: »

The salaries at the top echelons of the PS are what it would take to attract good talent and should be maintained, but we do have a problem where jobsworths are being promoted to receive those salaries.

We tried the "paying them well to attract good talent" trick over the last few years. Based on the mess we are in, we probably wouldn't be much worse off if we had "recruited" by randomly selecting people from the general population.

Manach

Offhand, I think that is what the ancient Greeks did, choose a random rich guy and told him:you are now in charge of outfitting this trimeme or holding this religious festival. I believe that they had an odd concept called "civil pride" - I don't understand the term myself.

hmmm

View wrote: »

We tried the "paying them well to attract good talent" trick over the last few years. Based on the mess we are in, we probably wouldn't be much worse off if we had "recruited" by randomly selecting people from the general population.

What did I say, I knew someone would raise this non-argument as some sort of justification.

hmmm

southsiderosie wrote: »

I really disagree with this. In most countries, public sector pay is lower than the private sector, even at the top end of the job/educational scale, because generally public sector employees work fewer/set hours, have better health and pension benefits, and more job security.

I agree that that is important at the lower end of the scale, but if you're competing for CEO equivalents who are capable of running companies with thousands of staff, or run public sector organisations of similar size, these people are not thinking of job security or pension benefits if they move to the public sector. They typically have a choice of multiple six figure salaries on offer, they are not going to pick the PS because they think they can turn up at 10am and go for a 30 minute tea break.

Sleepy

ROI stands for more than just Republic of Ireland. If a talented enough manager can cut 20 million worth of waste in an efficient manner while maintaining some reasonable level of service in the department to which they've been assigned, we can pay that man or woman 1 million a year and have a return on investment of 19m and consider the "grotesque" salary we're paying them to be money well spent.

southsiderosie

hmmm wrote: »

I agree that that is important at the lower end of the scale, but if you're competing for CEO equivalents who are capable of running companies with thousands of staff, or run public sector organisations of similar size, these people are not thinking of job security or pension benefits if they move to the public sector. They typically have a choice of multiple six figure salaries on offer, they are not going to pick the PS because they think they can turn up at 10am and go for a 30 minute tea break.

Then how are the heads of districts attorney's offices in cities like NY and Chicago (which are bigger than all of Ireland) able to hand on to their top attorneys despite the fact that they could make upwards of 300-600K more in the private sector? Why does anyone work for the Department of Justice - if you are smart enough to get a job with them, much less manage a bureau, you could work for any large private firm in the US. How are large non-profit agencies like the Red Cross, which has a huge staff and a multi-million dollar budget, able to keep any of their staff? Hell, why are so many students at Harvard Business School and MIT interested in social entrepreneurship rather than working for Goldman Sachs? They are literally leaving millions on the table.

Some people truly believe in public service, not to mention the fact that being the head of a large government organization may also come with a great deal of access to power, which is another source of prestige for many.

In addition, most heads of large government agencies don't do that work forever - they move in and out of the public and private sector. So in many cases they are bringing private sector expertise, but will take public sector wages in part because it is an honor to be asked by the president or a governor to head up a major agency. Again, wages have little to do with this. On that note, do you have any evidence that wages have anything to do with the ability of someone to run a large government agency or how well a particular agency is managed? Because I suspect that you will not find any.

And that still doesn't answer my other question: in this climate, where do you think they are going to go? Now is the perfect time to bring these salaries back down to where they should be - significantly below the wages in the private sector. If they don't like it they can take a hike.

View

hmmm wrote: »

What did I say, I knew someone would raise this non-argument as some sort of justification.

The only justification for paying individuals exorbitant salaries is if they deliver superb results. If they don't - or can't - deliver them then no justification exists for paying them those salaries.

Part of the justification for paying high salaries to top people in the private sector is if they fail to deliver, then they are thrown out in favour of someone else who can deliver. Sure, that doesn't always happen but it is the "general rule" and given the renumeration on offer, it would be a foolish person who decides to gamble on having forgiving superiors or board members should they fail to deliver.

By way of contrast, in the public sector here, what exactly is the penalty for failing to deliver? Why should you even try to deliver "good" results when you'll get paid the same if you deliver "poor" ones?

Scofflaw

Sleepy wrote: »

ROI stands for more than just Republic of Ireland. If a talented enough manager can cut 20 million worth of waste in an efficient manner while maintaining some reasonable level of service in the department to which they've been assigned, we can pay that man or woman 1 million a year and have a return on investment of 19m and consider the "grotesque" salary we're paying them to be money well spent.

True - unless, of course, we could have hired someone to achieve the same results for 250k, in which case the additional three-quarters of a million is being wasted.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Godge

southsiderosie wrote: »

I really disagree with this. In most countries, public sector pay is lower than the private sector, even at the top end of the job/educational scale, because generally public sector employees work fewer/set hours, have better health and pension benefits, and more job security. There are plenty of people who are willing to make that tradeoff, particularly women with families. For example, in the US, public sector lawyers are disproportionately female - these are women with degrees from top-tier law schools who are opting out of the high-paying high-flying private firms for 9-5 jobs. In other countries, there is a great deal of social prestige associated with being a high-level bureaucrat, so they are able to keep good people despite the lower wages.

The non-profit sector is another example - there are plenty of people who are willing to make a LOT less money than they would in the private sector because they really believe in what they are doing and enjoy the work.

Security, hours, desirability and social prestige all tie into why people are willing to take a paycut to do certain types of work. The assumption that this would lead to hemorrhaging of talent I think is overblown.

Where is your evidence for the piece in bold. Most of the studies done that criticise public service pay levels in Ireland (for example look at some of the work done by Jim O'Leary in Maynooth) acknowledge the existence of a public sector premium (i.e. public servants are paid more) in most countries but then argue that the public sector premium in Ireland is higher than most.

Why are public service employees paid more than private sector employees nearly everywhere? The answer is simple, because they are employees. In the public sector 100% of those taking part are employees. In the private sector only a percentage of those taking part are employees. Others are self-employed, directors, tradesmen, sole traders, company owners etc. This latter group tend to have bigger earnings than private sector employees. Like the public service, they also contain those educated to a higher level (architects, lawyers, doctors, dentists, accountants) to a greater degree that private sector employees.

To my knowledge, no study in Ireland has looked at private sector earnings, including all of the groups I have mentioned and compared them to public sector earnings. Most of the facile comparisons on this website have been done by comparing average industrial wage which is an even smaller group of private sector workers and has no comparative value at all and is just a tabloid comparison.

Going back to the academic work, one of the criticisms I would have is that in stating that the public sector premium is higher in Ireland, they did not consider potential explanations such as the fact that higher private sector earners in Ireland, to a greater extent than in other countries, tend to fall into the self-employed categories I mentioned above. Given the size of our economy and the lack of large indigineous companies, this may well be the case.

Notwithstanding the above, I do agree that Irish public sector employees were overpaid before the current adjustment began in late 2008 when the first pay increases (which had been given in the private sector) were witheld from the public sector. Whether some or all are still overpaid is another question. I think that some of the entry rates may be close or even below what they should be.

murphaph

Godge wrote: »

Notwithstanding the above, I do agree that Irish public sector employees were overpaid before the current adjustment began in late 2008 when the first pay increases (which had been given in the private sector) were witheld from the public sector.

What "normal" (non-ex semi state etc.) private sector companies follow these pay guidelines? I've never worked for a private company in Ireland that didn't pay each member of staff based on a combination of their individual merit and how the company was doing generally.

Pay should not be a diktat set by a clique of IBEC, government and union heads. People should be paid what their employer thinks is the right wage for that position. Paying people by diktat means the talented/hard working ones get screwed over and get paid the same as the lazy ones who hide in the system.

Godge

murphaph wrote: »

What "normal" (non-ex semi state etc.) private sector companies follow these pay guidelines? I've never worked for a private company in Ireland that didn't pay each member of staff based on a combination of their individual merit and how the company was doing generally.

Pay should not be a diktat set by a clique of IBEC, government and union heads. People should be paid what their employer thinks is the right wage for that position. Paying people by diktat means the talented/hard working ones get screwed over and get paid the same as the lazy ones who hide in the system.

Banks, insurance companies, Guinness, Wyeth, Tesco, Dunnes, most of the larger companies. The biggest group that wouldn't use the national agreements is probably the IT sector which are probably overrepresented on boards.ie.

Debtocracy

One consistent result within the research is that bonuses impair performance of complex tasks. Bonuses actually make people work harder but perform with less quality. For instance, bonuses would be particularly effective for a bricklayer but would actually impair the performance of a banker. Given these findings is it strange that businesses are still run on the premise that the most efficinet way to increase quality is to pay people more.

The research clearly shows that high levels of inequality are destructive for society. Compare the social structures in the U.S. (high ineqaulity) and Sweden (high equality) and work out which people are happier. You can be garuanteed that people in a highly unequal society are full to the brim with the stress hormone cortisol. A high level of inequality actually goes back to our chimpanzee days. Humans evolved more equal social structures in order to preform complex group tasks in the barren and dangerous lands in Africa. It was either a case of united we stand or divided we die. To conclude, I hate Libertarians who think that the forces of monpoly capitalism will sort evething out.

scotty_irish

Permabear wrote: »

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i'm pure capitalists, true and true, but i DO NOT ever wish to see ireland go down the route of america with only private health care and only education worth anything being private. everyone should be treated equally when it comes to these basic human needs. granted, they can be done a lot more efficiently and much better, but they should be government run and not run for profit. (says the man with VHI waiting at home for him if i ever need it)

beeftotheheels

Sand wrote: »

Why is it daft to limit public sector wages to what the state can afford when the only benchmark worth considering is what we can afford to pay.

Because if you want to hire a new consultant doctor and you can only afford to pay €24k then the chances are that you will have difficulty filling the vacancy with a suitable qualified candidate. However, at the other extreme paying €240k is also completely unnecessary.

southsiderosie

Debtocracy wrote: »

The research clearly shows that high levels of inequality are destructive for society. Compare the social structures in the U.S. (high ineqaulity) and Sweden (high equality) and work out which people are happier. You can be garuanteed that people in a highly unequal society are full to the brim with the stress hormone cortisol. A high level of inequality actually goes back to our chimpanzee days. Humans evolved more equal social structures in order to preform complex group tasks in the barren and dangerous lands in Africa. It was either a case of united we stand or divided we die. To conclude, I hate Libertarians who think that the forces of monpoly capitalism will sort evething out.

That is patently untrue. Latin America as a region has the highest levels of income inequality in the world, and they are consistently the 'happiest' region globally according to the World Values Survey and other happiness indices. As this blogger points out, the research suggests that social values not actual income status are what drive happiness, and this is where the US and much of Western Europe fails spectacularly:

The researchers of New Economics Foundation have noted a key feature of Latin American culture. It is the presence of relatively unmaterialistic aspirations and values, compared to countries with similar economic conditions. Latin Americans report being much less concerned with material issues than, for example, they are with their friends and family. They have plenty of social and cultural capital even if they dont have financial capital

.

southsiderosie

Godge wrote: »

Where is your evidence for the piece in bold. Most of the studies done that criticise public service pay levels in Ireland (for example look at some of the work done by Jim O'Leary in Maynooth) acknowledge the existence of a public sector premium (i.e. public servants are paid more) in most countries but then argue that the public sector premium in Ireland is higher than most.

Why are public service employees paid more than private sector employees nearly everywhere? The answer is simple, because they are employees. In the public sector 100% of those taking part are employees. In the private sector only a percentage of those taking part are employees. Others are self-employed, directors, tradesmen, sole traders, company owners etc. This latter group tend to have bigger earnings than private sector employees. Like the public service, they also contain those educated to a higher level (architects, lawyers, doctors, dentists, accountants) to a greater degree that private sector employees.

To my knowledge, no study in Ireland has looked at private sector earnings, including all of the groups I have mentioned and compared them to public sector earnings. Most of the facile comparisons on this website have been done by comparing average industrial wage which is an even smaller group of private sector workers and has no comparative value at all and is just a tabloid comparison.

Going back to the academic work, one of the criticisms I would have is that in stating that the public sector premium is higher in Ireland, they did not consider potential explanations such as the fact that higher private sector earners in Ireland, to a greater extent than in other countries, tend to fall into the self-employed categories I mentioned above. Given the size of our economy and the lack of large indigineous companies, this may well be the case.

Notwithstanding the above, I do agree that Irish public sector employees were overpaid before the current adjustment began in late 2008 when the first pay increases (which had been given in the private sector) were witheld from the public sector. Whether some or all are still overpaid is another question. I think that some of the entry rates may be close or even below what they should be.

It's too late for me to pull up the data now (I will try to find it when I am not exhausted), but if I remember correctly even if you control for industry and education the public sector still comes out ahead of the private sector, particularly when total compensation packages are taken into account.

What also makes Ireland stand out vis-a-vis other countries (particularly the Nordic countries) is that there is a relatively low tax base, yet public sector wages are quite high. Perhaps this is part of the neverending "Boston or Berlin" debate within Irish politics, but this needs to be resolved one way or another because the country simply cannot afford to maintain the wages (and future pensions) of its public employees at current rates.

Sand

@beef

Because if you want to hire a new consultant doctor and you can only afford to pay €24k then the chances are that you will have difficulty filling the vacancy with a suitable qualified candidate. However, at the other extreme paying €240k is also completely unnecessary.

If you cant afford an additional consultant doctor, then you cant afford an additional consultant doctor. You are then forced to find other ways to reorganise workloads so you free up more of your existing staff's time. Wages may be set by the market, but the market is composed of demand as well as supply. People might refuse to get out of bed for less than 100,000 euro a year, but that doesnt necessarily follow that theyll find someone willing to pay them that.

The civil service, semi states and public sector seem to be packed to the rafters with people who must be paid world class salaries. Apparently if they werent paid rockstar salaries theyd be snapped up by private sector headhunters who apparently are always looking for a track record of unremitting failure and incompetence. Its a self serving narrative, with little credibility.

beeftotheheels

Sand wrote: »

@beef


If you cant afford an additional consultant doctor, then you cant afford an additional consultant doctor. You are then forced to find other ways to reorganise workloads so you free up more of your existing staff's time. Wages may be set by the market, but the market is composed of demand as well as supply. People might refuse to get out of bed for less than 100,000 euro a year, but that doesnt necessarily follow that theyll find someone willing to pay them that.

With all due respect if I had a brain tumor I would not be particularly impressed with being able to see 20 "nurse practitioners" but no neurosurgeon. And setting the bar for neurosurgeons well below the international average will not make them refuse to get out of bed, it will make them get out of bed and hop on a plane unless we replicate Castro's model.

Sand wrote: »

The civil service, semi states and public sector seem to be packed to the rafters with people who must be paid world class salaries. Apparently if they werent paid rockstar salaries theyd be snapped up by private sector headhunters who apparently are always looking for a track record of unremitting failure and incompetence. Its a self serving narrative, with little credibility.

I've never argued against this, I simply take issue with anyone who think that the bar should be set simply on the basis of what we can afford and does not take any account of the skills that we need. Just because there are too many care assistants in the HSE does not justify failing to hire a neurosurgeon. I don't think we need to pay that neurosurgeon €240k, not only because we cannot afford it, and if we take into account pension rights the total package would be further out of step with international norms, but also because it is socially unjust, a balance should be struck.

motherriley

beeftotheheels wrote: »

With all due respect if I had a brain tumor I would not be particularly impressed with being able to see 20 "nurse practitioners" but no neurosurgeon. And setting the bar for neurosurgeons well below the international average will not make them refuse to get out of bed, it will make them get out of bed and hop on a plane unless we replicate Castro's model.

I've never argued against this, I simply take issue with anyone who think that the bar should be set simply on the basis of what we can afford and does not take any account of the skills that we need. Just because there are too many care assistants in the HSE does not justify failing to hire a neurosurgeon. I don't think we need to pay that neurosurgeon €240k, not only because we cannot afford it, and if we take into account pension rights the total package would be further out of step with international norms, but also because it is socially unjust, a balance should be struck.

Do you know what the international norms is for the neurosurgeons.

beeftotheheels

motherriley wrote: »

Do you know what the international norms is for the neurosurgeons.

No, but I have the salary range for a consultant in the NHS

http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/details/Default.aspx?Id=553

And a BMJ comparison for hospital based doctors which rates the UK pretty highly (and €240k is a hell of a lot more than £100k)

http://www.bmj.com/content/334/7587/236.full.pdf

All of which suggests we are wildly out of step here.

Godge

southsiderosie wrote: »

It's too late for me to pull up the data now (I will try to find it when I am not exhausted), but if I remember correctly even if you control for industry and education the public sector still comes out ahead of the private sector, particularly when total compensation packages are taken into account.

What also makes Ireland stand out vis-a-vis other countries (particularly the Nordic countries) is that there is a relatively low tax base, yet public sector wages are quite high. Perhaps this is part of the neverending "Boston or Berlin" debate within Irish politics, but this needs to be resolved one way or another because the country simply cannot afford to maintain the wages (and future pensions) of its public employees at current rates.

None of that takes away from my criticism of the academic work which is that they do not take account of the different composition of the private sector in Ireland (less employees, more sole traders, self-employed and contractors) compared to other countries as well as the fact that they are now three to four years out of date (no account of pension levy, changes to public sector pension schemes, pay cuts etc.).

Not saying that public servants are not overpaid (double negative there) but the academic work that supports the contention that they are overpaid is in my opinion, flawed.