FF/FG/Green Next Government

efanton · 07-08-2020 08:58PM

The_Conductor wrote: »

efanton - I don't think anyone can seriously argue with the points you're making- however, the manner in which workers in Ireland are taxed in an undue manner- with a marginal deduction rate of 52% on all pay over 34.5k- is very much a concern. Even for those in gainful employment- there is limited appeal in working longer hours or taking on more responsibility- when you're going to loose an abnormal chunk of it- at relatively low pay rates.

In addition- combined social welfare disbursements (under one or more headings- but including accommodation and a free medical card) can make it difficult to financially incentivise someone to join the workforce- sure you'd be mad to, if it cost you more in entitlements than you brought in (to say nothing of childcare costs).

The social welfare system- does need to be reformed- as does the tax system, childcare, and the sheer cost of living in Ireland. These are all political hot potatoes that our politicians have perennially booted into the long grass. We're now at yet another impasse - where we're running out of long grass- and look likely to borrow between 24 and 30 billion this year- with Brexit ready to boot us in the gonads come next January.

Whether we like it or not- we have been living far beyond our means- and money doesn't grow on trees.

We have some exceptionally hard choices we're going to have to make in the not so distant future.

So you have a problem with the tax system. That's fair enough, to a very large degree I agree with you. Yo have a problem with the fact that the squeezed middle are carrying too much of the burden, again I would totally agree with you.

So dont blame those on social welfare for a tax system or government spending that plainly is no longer fair and proportional, blame the government that is in control of it.
The problem is many of the squeezed middle are totally reluctant to blame existent tax policies on the government, that would mean blaming the party they support and potentially agreeing with political parties they do not support. Its so much easier to blame a scapegoat instead isnt't it?

Personally I have long argued a a three band tax system, so that a government could target policies specifically for the different income bands. When I heard SF were proposing to implement such a system I had high hopes until I realised that they were going to set the threshold for the third band at such a high level of €140k. An opportunity wasted in my opinion, that threshold was way to high as it would be difficult to only help the middle income earners without benefiting the high income earners too. What needs to be done it to add a new tax band in the MIDDLE of the tax spectrum not at the top end.

The two tier system is plain stupid in the modern age.
In the current system if you want to help the lowest paid you raise the lowest tax band's threshold, but while doing so you also give that benefit to the middle and high income earners. This has the effect of diluting the measure or increasing the cost of this measure to get the desired effect.
This is much of the problem with the existing tax system. By trying to help the poorest by raising the lower tax bands threshold the government have inadvertently removed far to many from the taxation net, which has inadvertently put more pressure on the middle income earners.

In the current system if you wanted to help the squeezed middle you raise the threshold for the existing upper tax band, but while you do that you are also giving that benefit to the highest paid as well, again diluting the effectiveness of the measure and adding cost.

I you had a three band system you could adjust the lower and upper thresholds of the middle band so that you could indeed specifically target the lower income earners, the middle income earners or the higher income earners individually. I would suggest a threshold for the lowest band at 15k, the middle band at 30k and the higher band at 80k. Have the lowest band rate set at 20%, the middle band set to 35% and then adjust the rate of the top band so that there is no net loss to revenue takings. It would need a bit of tinkering to get it right, but the point is you would then have a tax system where you could target lower, middle or higher income workers specifically without adding additional cost and without giving benefit to those you did not intend to have it
.
With three bands you could adjust the thresholds for each band, or adjust the rate for each band and specifically target only the tax payers you intended to benefit.

The_Brood · 07-08-2020 08:58PM

Just a tasty little reminder from January:

“We will not be entering into a grand coalition, people want change, it’s very clear, the message we’re receiving [is] people want change in this country, they want Fine Gael out of office,” Micheál Martin said.

I have this crazy idea that political opponents who do not want to work together, and specifically state that they do not want and will not work together, should then not be forced by a foolish voting system to form a disjointed, nonsense coalition spitting out contradictory information with every last step and decision, screwing the people.

Wanderer78 · 07-08-2020 09:01PM

efanton wrote:

So you have a problem with the tax system. That's fair enough, to a very large degree I agree with you. Yo have a problem with the fact that the squeezed middle are carrying too much of the burden, again I would totally agree with you.

Changing our tax system will only get us so far, but it does need to be looked at, we urgently need to rethink how wealth is created in the country and how we distribute it, or more importantly, how we don't distribute it

Wanderer78 · 07-08-2020 09:03PM

The_Brood wrote:

â€œWe will not be entering into a grand coalition, people want change, itâ€™s very clear, the message weâ€™re receiving [is] people want change in this country, they want Fine Gael out of office,â€ MicheÃ¡l Martin said.

They're all full of sh1t, they'd all get into bed together, expect some of the weirdest combinations going forward from now on

James Brown · 07-08-2020 09:44PM

The_Brood wrote: »

Just a tasty little reminder from January:

“We will not be entering into a grand coalition, people want change, it’s very clear, the message we’re receiving [is] people want change in this country, they want Fine Gael out of office,” Micheál Martin said.

I have this crazy idea that political opponents who do not want to work together, and specifically state that they do not want and will not work together, should then not be forced by a foolish voting system to form a disjointed, nonsense coalition spitting out contradictory information with every last step and decision, screwing the people.

That was MM trying to appease the 'had enough of FG' vote.
The SD's were the only ones stood clear on principle and wouldn't touch either of the civil war two.

KyussB · 07-08-2020 09:57PM

The_Conductor wrote: »

Sigh- so you do believe that money grows on trees? I wish I believed in fairy tales too- however, this particular fairy tale does not have a pleasant ending.

All I can do is say- I wish you the very best of good luck- seeing as your and my opinions are so diametrically opposed- there really is no point in discussing/debating this with you.

Do you think we dig money out of the ground? Explain to us where, exactly, you think money comes from?

Since money is fundamental to discussion of all of macroeconomics, it's kind of a prerequisite to have some clue about where it comes from, to avoid talking absolute bollocks about macroeconomic policy.

KyussB · 07-08-2020 10:06PM

RandomViewer wrote: »

I get where you are coming from but I can't see anyone in the current political system going for it, the idea of state employment as a guarantee if you can't find alternative is a noble idea but the way this country works there has to be a backhander for someone, so costs would make your proposal too costly.

It's good that more people see it as a noble idea at least. I think that as more and more people see mass long-term unemployment as an unjustified and unacceptable thing (and gradually, as an unnecessary thing), that this will become a universally popular cause (among people with both right and left wing views).

If it was to be implemented properly, I think that people will gradually view the greater cost, as being leaving people unemployed for long periods, and leaving necessary work undone that such people could do (both accommodation and infrastructural etc. being more immediate ones).

The cost of not doing all of that is far greater - both in human terms and economically.

efanton · 07-08-2020 10:19PM

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Changing our tax system will only get us so far, but it does need to be looked at, we urgently need to rethink how wealth is created in the country and how we distribute it, or more importantly, how we don't distribute it

You simply cant change how wealth is created, at least not in a democracy or open economy.

The tax system is the only method a country has of redistributing wealth, controlling the spending of its citizens or to some degree managing how wealth is generated. It is also the tax system that control how much a government can spend. You can argue that the government spends too much in one area but not another, you might argue that more needs to be spent on health for instance, but that will be at the cost of reduced spending in another area. Without a change to the tax system its unlikely that you could dramatically increase spending in any of the major government departments.

The reality is the tax system is the be all and end all as far as spending and control of spending goes, be that for the ordinary citizen or the the government.

The real underlying problem that most countries have is that big business and the very wealthy have far too much influence on how much a government collects in tax revenues and how much or where it spends these tax receipts.

If you want to see a fairer society or relieve the pressure on the squeezed middle income earner the only way to even get a start on that is significant changes to the tax system.

You cant spend what you do not have, and you cant take from those that dont have it.

KyussB · 07-08-2020 10:22PM

No economist on the entire planet thinks Government Spending = Government Revenue - so no, you are wrong about all of that.

The biggest trap anyone who cares about inequality can fall into, is to view taxes as the means to resolve it. Taxes are a fundamental part of resolving it, yes - but the most important part is Government Spending, and using that to bolster conditions for the least well off - not taxes.

Shefwedfan · 07-08-2020 10:27PM

The_Brood wrote: »

Just a tasty little reminder from January:

“We will not be entering into a grand coalition, people want change, it’s very clear, the message we’re receiving [is] people want change in this country, they want Fine Gael out of office,” Micheál Martin said.

I have this crazy idea that political opponents who do not want to work together, and specifically state that they do not want and will not work together, should then not be forced by a foolish voting system to form a disjointed, nonsense coalition spitting out contradictory information with every last step and decision, screwing the people.

Ok I think we need to explain this again
No party prior to election will say they want to go into a coalition. Not the big boys. They expect to win enough votes to win a majority, if they go into an election saying they only want to get into bed with XYZ then they are seen as weak

Once an election happens and votes are in the everything changes. This is standard, has happened in loads of elections but for some reason at this elections we have a load of people who just can’t seem to get their head around it

So far what the government have done, what’s your alternative? I guess your talking about covid what would you do?

efanton · 07-08-2020 10:36PM

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Ok I think we need to explain this again
No party prior to election will say they want to go into a coalition. Not the big boys. They expect to win enough votes to win a majority, if they go into an election saying they only want to get into bed with XYZ then they are seen as weak

Once an election happens and votes are in the everything changes. This is standard, has happened in loads of elections but for some reason at this elections we have a load of people who just can’t seem to get their head around it

So far what the government have done, what’s your alternative? I guess your talking about covid what would you do?

I totally disagree with you.

All MM had to say was we will not be drawn on whether we will go into coalition with any party until the election has actually taken place. He did not have to say he was for or against coalition with any party.

The reason MM made that comment, knowing damn well that it was quite likely that it was a lie even when saying it, was to get extra votes. People voted FF that would not have given them a vote had they known a coalition with FG was possible.

Had he not said it you know and I know damn well FF would have even less seats in the Dail and it would be very likely that we would now have a left of centre government of some kind, or some form of Unity government.

I have little time for devious people, or blatant liars, but MM fits both descriptions.

Shefwedfan · 07-08-2020 10:39PM

efanton wrote: »

I totally disagree with you.

All MM had to say was we will not be drawn on whether we will go into coalition with any party until the election has actually taken place. He did not have to say he was for or against coalition with any party.

The reason MM made that comment, knowing damn well that it was quite likely that it was a a lie even when saying it, was to get extra votes.

Had he not said it you know and I know damn well FF would have even less seats in the Dail and it would be very likely that we would now have a left of centre government of some kind, or some form of Unity government.
both descriptions.
I have little time for devious people, or blatant liars, but MM fits both.

You can disagree all you like but that’s the way the world goes round

Any other statement from MM and he would be seen as weak and wouldn’t even had led FF into the election

efanton · 07-08-2020 10:52PM

Shefwedfan wrote: »

You can disagree all you like but that’s the way the world goes round

Any other statement from MM and he would be seen as weak and wouldn’t even had led FF into the election

He is weak, nothing he said or could of said would change that.
Look at the mess he made in the first week when appointing ministers. He had his own TD's openly defying him. Tell me that that is not a sign of weakness.
If he had any strength at all, they would have never dared to go as far as they did.

Did FG, as much as I dislike them, say they would not form a coalition with FF?
Did they U-turn on any promise they made during the election?

Name any other party that made a statement prior to the election regarding whether they would consider a coalition with another party and then actually did a complete U-turn?

Lying and conniving to get into power might be the way the world goes round for those in FF, but for others all it is a sign of the weakness you talk about.

Wanderer78 · 08-08-2020 05:33AM

efanton wrote:

You cant spend what you do not have, and you cant take from those that dont have it.

Again, as other posters have eluded to, money creation is also key to this, governments, if allowed, and to a degree, they still can, within current eu rules, can in fact create money via bonds and public banking systems, this of course turns into debt, the same as all other money that is created, via the private sector.

We urgently need to get a handle on the large amount of wealth created by mnc's, of which we only truly receive a very small amount of it via taxation, I do think the best way of doing this is accepting partial payments of revenue as stocks and shares, and utilising sovereign wealth funds from there to redistributing this wealth. There would be no need to increase our 12.5% rate either.

Another method potentially could be by selling the tech companies our data, since this is a critical component of their wealth creation, and we currently freely give it to them, only for them to process it, turning it into astonishing levels of wealth, of which we receive little or nothing of.

Shefwedfan · 08-08-2020 09:51AM

Wanderer78 wrote: »

Again, as other posters have eluded to, money creation is also key to this, governments, if allowed, and to a degree, they still can, within current eu rules, can in fact create money via bonds and public banking systems, this of course turns into debt, the same as all other money that is created, via the private sector.

We urgently need to get a handle on the large amount of wealth created by mnc's, of which we only truly receive a very small amount of it via taxation, I do think the best way of doing this is accepting partial payments of revenue as stocks and shares, and utilising sovereign wealth funds from there to redistributing this wealth. There would be no need to increase our 12.5% rate either.

Another method potentially could be by selling the tech companies our data, since this is a critical component of their wealth creation, and we currently freely give it to them, only for them to process it, turning it into astonishing levels of wealth, of which we receive little or nothing of.

How much are the MNC paying in terms of wages and pension contributions etc?

Ireland would want to be completely stupid to try and wedge more money out of them to pay for people who just don’t want to work or who don’t want to pay tax

We are getting tax from these companies, they are paying wages which we tax, they are paying rent which we tax.

Seriously some people need to cop on. SF came
Up with this MNC bulls**t and everyone is running around after it without an idea what they are talking about, you will cripple this country. Putting thousand and thousand of people unemployed and all the tax they drive.

How exactly are you going to sell them your data? Please explain that one to me

Wanderer78 · 08-08-2020 10:11AM

Shefwedfan wrote: »

How much are the MNC paying in terms of wages and pension contributions etc?

Ireland would want to be completely stupid to try and wedge more money out of them to pay for people who just don’t want to work or who don’t want to pay tax

We are getting tax from these companies, they are paying wages which we tax, they are paying rent which we tax.

Seriously some people need to cop on. SF came
Up with this MNC bulls**t and everyone is running around after it without an idea what they are talking about, you will cripple this country. Putting thousand and thousand of people unemployed and all the tax they drive.

How exactly are you going to sell them your data? Please explain that one to me

..and how much wealth are mnc's extracting in order to maximize share holder value? we urgently need a bigger share of this wealth, requesting a small amount of their current revenue in stocks and shares wouldnt upset their business model too much. it would be an indirect way of receiving more of the wealth created, it would give us more skin in the game, so to speak, sovereign wealth funds are commonly used globally for such purposes, norway comes to mind, in regards the use of its fossil fuels reserves.

in fairness, the political left are lost on this one, particular parties such as sf, ive always had issues with mnc's, after spending a few years working for one, and seeing how they treat some people, even some of my previous managers agree with me, the company i worked for, has never made a profit in its 40 years of operations here, according to its books!

in regards selling our data, tell them, if you want to collect our data, you have to pay for it, and maybe give them the option of paying via stocks and shares in their companies, and again utilize swf's from there to redistribute the wealth generated from the fund. that idea is political scientists mark Blyths, he explains it in his new book, angrynomics, probably worth a read if you want more info on how this could be done

markodaly · 08-08-2020 10:19AM

KyussB wrote: »

NeoLiberalism came to the fore in the 70's/80's - from the 1940's until then economics was dominated by Keynesianism, and that was the 'golden age' of capitalism.

Neoclassical economics has existed through all that time (it's inherent in NeoLiberalism, and what is known as 'Keynesianism' is the 'Neoclasical Synthesis' which mixed Keyne's views with Neoclassical economics, despite Keyne's being against neoclassical views) - it is the reason for the failure of 'Keynesianism' in the 70's stagflation (which did not invalidate Keyne's views, it invalidated the Neoclassical Synthesis), and the rise of NeoLiberalism.

Capitalism in the form of Keyne's views, brought the golden age - Neoclassical economics undermined that golden age, and also brought us NeoLiberalism - which has spent the last 40 years gradually reversing all the gains that Keyne's-style economics brought everyday people - and is accelerating inequality and the instability of capitalism.

Stable capitalism that works for everybody, is based on Keyne's.

Thanks for the history lesson but again, the 70's were kinda **** world-wide.
If one wants to look at the reduction of absolute poverty since the 80's..

https://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/wp-content/uploads/PR-in-China-India-and-Brazil1.png

Life expectancy

Women in education.

Now, are there some edge cases where things have not worked out as well as we hoped. Yes, I am man enough to admit that, but the underlying reasons for this is very complicated, but can be summarised by the rise of China.

The working class in the west have been put out by the rise in China, but then again up to 400 million people in China would be classed as middle class, so its not all bad.
Again, its complicated. But there are idiots online and social media just want to encapsulate complicated issues into a buzz word or soundbite.

markodaly · 08-08-2020 10:20AM

Bowie wrote: »

'Here's my view of why everything is great wrong and theres no issues solutions. I'm sure people will come along with facts to dispute that' :rolleyes:

FYP

Wanderer78 · 08-08-2020 10:28AM

markodaly wrote: »

Thanks for the history lesson but again, the 70's were kinda **** world-wide.
If one wants to look at the reduction of absolute poverty since the 80's..

Life expectancy

Now, are there some edge cases where things have not worked out as well as we hoped. Yes, I am man enough to admit that, but the underlying reasons for this is very complicated, but can be summarised by the rise of China.

The working class in the west have been put out by the rise in China, but then again up to 400 million people in China would be classed as middle class, so its not all bad.
Again, its complicated. But there are idiots online and social media just want to encapsulate complicated issues into a buzz word or soundbite.

again, life expectancy is starting to fall in parts of the states, this is believed to be as a direct consequences of policies implemented during this period, the so called neoliberial/neoclassical era, but be aware, this is largely believed from more left leaning commemorators, of which i believe, they are correct, but i will also say, this is truly extremely complicated, and we probably dont fully understand these complexities. id class 'debt peonage' as a new form of poverty, i.e. we ve simply change our understanding of poverty from more traditional forms, i.e. hunger, homelessness, and replaced it with debt. its also important to include data such as gini coefficients etc, in these arguments, in order to show the rapid rise in inequality during this period

James Brown · 08-08-2020 10:55AM

markodaly wrote: »

FYP

Record breaking societal crises year on year for the last several years

You explaining why you feel that might be outside of government policy doesn't change the facts.

Record breaking numbers of homeless children during economic growth.

More working people need state aid to function. That's a problem.
Meanwhile Ireland is fifth in the world for number of billionaires per capita.

The electorate obviously didnt think FG were doing a good job as their vote declined. This would be based on their personal experience.

Truthvader · 08-08-2020 11:10AM

Bowie wrote: »

Record breaking societal crises year on year for the last several years

You explaining why you feel that might be outside of government policy doesn't change the facts.

Record breaking numbers of homeless children during economic growth.

More working people need state aid to function. That's a problem.
Meanwhile Ireland is fifth in the world for number of billionaires per capita.

The electorate obviously didnt think FG were doing a good job as their vote declined. This would be based on their personal experience.

Whatever anyone thinks the last sentence here is true. Either the FG supporters are wrong and blind to a substantial amount of the public being left behind or they are failing to transmit the "good news"

James Brown · 08-08-2020 11:13AM

Truthvader wrote: »

Whatever anyone thinks the last sentence here is true. Either the FG supporters are wrong and blind to a substantial amount of the public being left behind or they are failing to transmit the "good news"

Every bit is true. You can disagree with it's impact but you can't dispute it.
As for the electorate you don't move your vote simply because change is as good as a rest.

KyussB · 08-08-2020 11:16AM

markodaly wrote: »

Thanks for the history lesson but again, the 70's were kinda **** world-wide.
If one wants to look at the reduction of absolute poverty since the 80's..

Life expectancy

Women in education.
Now, are there some edge cases where things have not worked out as well as we hoped. Yes, I am man enough to admit that, but the underlying reasons for this is very complicated, but can be summarised by the rise of China.

The working class in the west have been put out by the rise in China, but then again up to 400 million people in China would be classed as middle class, so its not all bad.
Again, its complicated. But there are idiots online and social media just want to encapsulate complicated issues into a buzz word or soundbite.

The Labour Share of Income (workers share of profits/income, nationally) has been declining since the 70's, all across the western world, coinciding directly with the rise of NeoLiberalism:

P9: https://www.bruegel.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/PC-12-2017-1.pdf

P8: http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/handle/2262/68197/sweeney 2012-3 ssisi.pdf

Pinning the blame of China is exactly the kind of simplification of a complicated issue that you criticize.

Brendan Bendar · 08-08-2020 11:19AM

Shinners blindsided the electorate with populist ‘policies’ and unsustainable fiscal policy.

Unfortunately some folk were taken in by them.

Spend the Apple money my eye, nationalise this, liquidise that.... Utopia here we come.

Yurt2 · 08-08-2020 11:23AM

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

Shinners blindsided the electorate with populist ‘policies’ and unsustainable fiscal policy.

Unfortunately some folk were taken in by them.

Spend the Apple money my eye, nationalise this, liquidise that.... Utopia here we come.

Ah the 'comptency' play. I'm sure the electorate were just mistaken about the housing sh*t show and rolling healthcare disasters.

They just didn't internalise FG's focus grouped messaging correctly.

Truthvader · 08-08-2020 11:28AM

Bowie wrote: »

Every bit is true. You can disagree with it's impact but you can't dispute it.
As for the electorate you don't move your vote simply because change is as good as a rest.

Well some of the allegations are meaningless as "societal crises" doesn't really mean anything at all

You are right about homelessness though. See attached Focus link. The rise since 2014 is very stark. Anyone from FG care to explain? If you are in government it looks like your fault

See link

https://www.focusireland.ie/resource-hub/latest-figures-homelessness-ireland/

Wanderer78 · 08-08-2020 12:10PM

Brendan Bendar wrote:

Spend the Apple money my eye, nationalise this, liquidise that.... Utopia here we come.

You will actually find ideologies such as neoliberal/neoclassical, are just as utopic as other ideologies, including left leaning ones such as socialism, for example, there's is no evidence of a market equilibrium, particularly at the macro level, there's no such thing as a 'rationally expecting' human, markets do not operate in linearity, and you can be damn sure, they ain't tending towards or away from this magical equilibrium point, our consumption markets resemble a more supply supply position and not this magical supply and demand nonsense, if that was the case, overall storage capacity within our trading systems should be falling, due to modern manufacturing techniques such as 'just in time', overall storage capacity is in fact increasing due to this supply supply approach, with some products remaining in storage for many months or even years. You could go on and on and on, with this neoclassical nonsense.......

Wanderer78 · 08-08-2020 12:13PM

Truthvader wrote:

You are right about homelessness though. See attached Focus link. The rise since 2014 is very stark. Anyone from FG care to explain? If you are in government it looks like your fault

We re just waiting for the 'demand' of the market to appear, so we can crack on with it, then we can ramp up 'supply', until we get it to 'equilibrium'!

James Brown · 08-08-2020 12:19PM

Truthvader wrote: »

Well some of the allegations are meaningless as "societal crises" doesn't really mean anything at all

You are right about homelessness though. See attached Focus link. The rise since 2014 is very stark. Anyone from FG care to explain? If you are in government it looks like your fault

See link

https://www.focusireland.ie/resource-hub/latest-figures-homelessness-ireland/

No allegations.
Even on the cooked books of FG/Murphy it was getting worse.
When everyone including government recognises theres a crisis, theres a crisis.

You are making allegations to make light of a crisis. Nice.
FG polices exacerbated the problems. You can tell by the way things got continually worse.

To quote Kenny, we need to change the way we do business' it's not just a FG problem.

efanton · 08-08-2020 12:24PM

markodaly wrote: »

Thanks for the history lesson but again, the 70's were kinda **** world-wide.
If one wants to look at the reduction of absolute poverty since the 80's..

Life expectancy

Women in education.

Now, are there some edge cases where things have not worked out as well as we hoped. Yes, I am man enough to admit that, but the underlying reasons for this is very complicated, but can be summarised by the rise of China.

The working class in the west have been put out by the rise in China, but then again up to 400 million people in China would be classed as middle class, so its not all bad.
Again, its complicated. But there are idiots online and social media just want to encapsulate complicated issues into a buzz word or soundbite.

I notice that the somehow used lifetime expectancy and 3rd level education as indicators of the reduction of poverty?
They have very little to do with poverty or the trend where ordinary people appear to be worse off each year rather than better off. For abject poverty you might have an argument, but we are not a 3rd world country.

Why did you not do a comparison of wage income compared to corporate profits or increased GDP ?
Surely that would be the best indicator as to whether poverty is being reduced.
As the economy and GDP grows surely it would be reasonable to expect the income of those that contributed to that to increase as well. The reality ls a completely different story though.

The reality is that wages are increasing at a tiny fraction of the rate that company profits and GDP are increasing. What does that mean?
Well if you are an ordinary worker (irrespective of skill level or education) you will have noticed that the incomes of businesses, those that own businesses, or those that earn a living from property (landlords, developers etc) have increased dramatically while at the same time your wages have increased at a relatively low rate over the last 30 years. In fact due to the increase in rents and property values those small increases in income might not account for you increased monthly costs.

In plain an simple terms the rich are getting richer and everyone else are either seeing extremely modest increases in personal wealth, barely treading water and keeping their head above water, or they are actually experiencing a trend towards poverty.

The chart below is from a July 2018 presentation by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on the Employment Outlook 2018 report from the think-tank for mainly rich country governments.

What that graph clearly show is that from the 1990's corporate and business profits are clearly increasing dramatically while incomes for the 50% of workers at the lower end of the scale stagnated. Prior to this generally wage increases kept pace with corporate profits.

Its all well and good attracting big business to Ireland, but surely the purpose of doing so is so that the citizens of Ireland and the country as a whole benefit from this.
While multinationals employ early 230,000 people in this country, jobs that we as a country cannot afford to lose, there is a fair and reasonable argument that the trend of wage stagnation seen in most OECD countries since the 1990's has to change or that we do increase the taxation that these multinationals pay. While multinational pay 12.5% corporate tax on the earnings from this country, they pay an effective tax rate (ETR) of 2.2–4.5% on global profits "shifted" to Ireland.
What ever way you look at it that an awful lot of profit that is not reasonably taxed.

Now I am not suggesting for one minute that we start taxing the bejesus of of the multinationals or indigenous Irish businesses, nor charge them 12.5% on all profits, but there is a reasonable argument to suggest that we somehow increase the effective tax rate on Intellectual Property related profits by just a fraction of a percent.
In 2015 Apple imported $300 BILLION worth of global profits into Ireland to avail of these 2.2–4.5% effective tax rates.
Simply increasing that by just 0.5% would net the Irish exchequer an additional 1.5 billion euro. Put it another way, if that amount had been divided among all employees of multinationals in this country that would equate to a $180 a month pay rise or $180 per month less tax that they would pay,

Now you will argue that that was a one off movement of wealth and would not net the Irish exchequer 1.5 billion every year and I would agree, but we are talking about one single multinational company, that makes profit each year and generally increases the profit it makes. If you applied the same measure to all Intellectual Property profits imported to Ireland it would add up to a very significant amount of money and yet there would be absolutely no risk whatsoever of these multinationals pulling out of Ireland.

Personally I think indigenous big business and multinationals have had far too much influence over Irish governments and their taxation measures. If these companies are not prepared to increase the wages they pay proportionate to the increased profits they are making then it is reasonable that the Irish government extract a tiny fraction of those imported profits and use that to reduce taxation of the middle and lower income workers that have been hit hardest in recent years.

FF/FG/Green Next Government

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