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Turned a corner?

13

Comments

  • #62
    fat__tony
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 587 ✭✭✭fat__tony


    This was posted in the comments section of the Indo website on Bredan Keenan's piece; Targets are Sacrosanct but look reachable

    http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/brendan-keenan/brendan-keenan-targets-are-sacrosanct-but-they-look-reachable-2896142.html
    Is this some sort of zen exercise at hitting targets? These are the same targets we have been trying to hit for nearly 4 years now. We have not reduced the deficit by a red cent and that is the reality.

    The whole rotten edifice that is the public sector and its unions are being protected by the government while the rest of the economy is left swinging in the wind. It is funny to hear Howlin use words like "sacrosanct" we all know what is and is not sacrosanct, that which falls within the Croke Park agreement is sacrosanct the rest of your contracts and jobs are up for grabs!

    As for reform, the person Brendan Howlin is appointing to "reform" the public sector will be on a years probation, yes probation, and is expected to operate within the system of benefits that he is trying to "reform". How can you reform something, when there is an agreement in place that says, you cannot reform anything if it costs our members money.
    Their hands are tied, they cannot reduce salaries, reduce pensions, sack pen pushers or people for whom there are no jobs. This is all about preserving the status quo in the face of massive borrowing from bailout funds. The fact of the matter is that we were borrowing 20bn three years ago and are still borrowing 20bn now. We are being told if we did not have to put 3bn into banks the deficit would be 17bn. The government took over and now own the banks so the tax payer is now on the hook like it or not. BoI is also on life support from the ECB and Irish Central Bank and would collapse in the morning if the ECB said we want our money.

    This job should have been given to a complete outsider come in do your job, be hated and get out. This is not a job for another insider which is what you do when you want to talk the talk but not walk the walk. They simply can not get from where they are to where they need to go without "strikes" and with a softly, softly approach. Croke Park is a sell out to the rest of the population it is weekly insult to every one of the 450,000 people on the dole and comes too late for the 300,000 who have had to emigrate. I will tell you what "sacrosanct" really means, it means keeping his fingers crossed while his arrows go everywhere except into the target!

    Pretty much sums up the state of the country.


  • #63
    OMD
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,458 ✭✭✭OMD


    fat__tony wrote: »
    This was posted in the comments section of the Indo website on Bredan Keenan's piece; Targets are Sacrosanct but look reachable

    http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/brendan-keenan/brendan-keenan-targets-are-sacrosanct-but-they-look-reachable-2896142.html



    Pretty much sums up the state of the country.

    If you mean the person writing the piece is talking total ill informed nonsense and Irish people generally talk in a totally incorrect and ill-informed way, then yes it does sum up the country.


  • #64
    fat__tony
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 587 ✭✭✭fat__tony


    OMD wrote: »
    If you mean the person writing the piece is talking total ill informed nonsense and Irish people generally talk in a totally incorrect and ill-informed way, then yes it does sum up the country.

    What is incorrect about the person who posted the comment then?

    He hits the nail right on the head.


  • #65
    OMD
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,458 ✭✭✭OMD


    fat__tony wrote: »
    What is incorrect about the person who posted the comment then?

    He hits the nail right on the head.
    well for starters the neighbouring thread will help explain we have reduced the current deficit by a "red cent".
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056410652


  • #66
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,396 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    Live register numbers fall for the first time since 2007.


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  • #67
    easychair
    Closed Accounts Posts: 905 ✭✭✭easychair


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    Live register numbers fall for the first time since 2007.

    I think you'll probably find that it's more as a result of a return to emigration, than any "green shoots" in the economy. It would be wonderful to think it's because the economy is about to blossom and flourish, but reality suggests otherwise.


  • #68
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,396 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    easychair wrote: »
    I think you'll probably find that it's more as a result of a return to emigration, than any "green shoots" in the economy. It would be wonderful to think it's because the economy is about to blossom and flourish, but reality suggests otherwise.
    Still a positive in my book. We have historically been a big exporter of educated people and this country filled up with skilled and unskilled workers... maybe it's time we export our abundance of them to places where they are needed.


  • #69
    murphaph
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,030 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    Still a positive in my book. We have historically been a big exporter of educated people and this country filled up with skilled and unskilled workers... maybe it's time we export our abundance of them to places where they are needed.
    I doubt the unskilled are the ones leaving the live register for other lands. Most likely we are losing skilled people who can find work abroad.

    My mother works in a county council office and she tells me that the planning department have literally got absolutely nothing to do and have had virtually nothing to do for 3 or 4 years now. The taxpayer pays the wages of 20 architects in this department to drive around in nice Audis instead of making them redundant, which is what they are!

    The CPA is a sham designed to fcuk the non-PS part of the population over. No more and no less. If people in the PS are surplus to requirements or are overpaid relative to their private sector counterparts they should be made redundant or have their wages reduced respectively.

    The politicians won't do it mainly because their pay and pensions are linked to the PS rates, simple as that.


  • #70
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,396 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    murphaph wrote: »
    I doubt the unskilled are the ones leaving the live register for other lands. Most likely we are losing skilled people who can find work abroad.

    My mother works in a county council office and she tells me that the planning department have literally got absolutely nothing to do and have had virtually nothing to do for 3 or 4 years now. The taxpayer pays the wages of 20 architects in this department to drive around in nice Audis instead of making them redundant, which is what they are!

    The CPA is a sham designed to fcuk the non-PS part of the population over. No more and no less. If people in the PS are surplus to requirements or are overpaid relative to their private sector counterparts they should be made redundant or have their wages reduced respectively.

    The politicians won't do it mainly because their pay and pensions are linked to the PS rates, simple as that.
    Australia currently has high demand for unskilled and skilled labourers.


  • #71
    ardmacha
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,476 ✭✭✭ardmacha


    The taxpayer pays the wages of 20 architects in this department to drive around in nice Audis instead of making them redundant, which is what they are!

    Surely people in a planning dept are planners not architects?
    The CPA is a sham designed to fcuk the non-PS part of the population over. No more and no less.

    This is a bit simplistic. The CPA sweeps away an accretion of limiting structures in many parts of the PS, the removal of this is of real value and will be of long term benefit. It is not a sham.

    This is not to say that the planners in your mothers council are not benefiting unduly from the CPA, but there is work that they might usefully do and they should clearly be asked to do it.


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  • #72
    murphaph
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,030 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    ardmacha wrote: »
    Surely people in a planning dept are planners not architects?
    The mother says they're mostly qualified architects. The non-architects in the department also have SFA to do, but are still being paid (well enough to drive very nice cars) by the public purse for doing it.
    ardmacha wrote: »
    This is a bit simplistic. The CPA sweeps away an accretion of limiting structures in many parts of the PS, the removal of this is of real value and will be of long term benefit. It is not a sham.
    Come on Ardmacha, put a "dollar amount" on how much you think these changes will make, bearing in mind my story of planners and architects twiddling their thumbs in one of dozens of planning departments across the country. Will the CPA see these planners working in the DSW (or whatever it's called today)? No chance.
    ardmacha wrote: »
    This is not to say that the planners in your mothers council are not benefiting unduly from the CPA, but there is work that they might usefully do and they should clearly be asked to do it.
    They won't be and I think we both know it. The mother tells me lots of stories about the council workers and how they feel "snowed under" if they have more than one thing to do. The culture is alien to what most people would understand as "real work".

    The HSE is stacked full to the gills of these people as well. The PS expanded far more rapidly during the Ahern years than it needed to. FF bought successive elections in doing so, just as they increased SW payments well above the rate of inflation for the same end.

    The CPA protects one group (a minority) in society at the expense of the rest. There is no getting away from that. There should be no guaranteed job for life in the PS if there is nothing for you to do or you're not qualified or not willing to do the work that needs doing. Do you agree with me on that much?


  • #73
    ardmacha
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,476 ✭✭✭ardmacha


    They won't be and I think we both know it. The mother tells me lots of stories about the council workers and how they feel "snowed under" if they have more than one thing to do. The culture is alien to what most people would understand as "real work"
    .

    I have a friend who works in a local authority and sadly this is true, although the work gets done by asking more of the people who are working rather than those who are not.

    But there are two issues here. The CPA allows people be asked to work, but in many cases they still have not been. On the radio recently a union person was talking about hospitals. In one hospital they had problems, shifts were changed and an agreement reached and things were mitigated. In another hospital they had similar problems, but management had never even proposed a plan to address the issues under the CPA!!

    As always in such matters people condemn the whole thing rather than insisting that the government implement it.


  • #74
    murphaph
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,030 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    ardmacha wrote: »
    As always in such matters people condemn the whole thing rather than insisting that the government implement it.
    To be quite honest, I can't see it being implemented by the gimp management that exists within the PS, mostly promoted due to length of service rather than managerial ability.

    Without effective management, the CPA can't succeed. I really want the CPA to deliver what it promised and would be delighted if it could genuinely save enough money not to have to make a load of people redundant in the end (hatchet job) but I fear what has happened in Greece will happen in Ireland...the CPA won't deliver the savings needed and the government will end up just making 50k public servants redundant, including probably mostly last in first out which will likely leave the dead wood in the councils and the HSE well alone.

    The replacement of the PS management with outsiders is key IMO but sure Howlin has already appointed another insider as the chap in charge of PS reform......not a great start!


  • #75
    fat__tony
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 587 ✭✭✭fat__tony


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    Still a positive in my book. We have historically been a big exporter of educated people and this country filled up with skilled and unskilled workers... maybe it's time we export our abundance of them to places where they are needed.

    How on earth is forced emigration of skilled and educated young people deemed to be positive?

    What an utterly ridiculously thing to say.


  • #76
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,396 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    fat__tony wrote: »
    How on earth is forced emigration of skilled and educated young people deemed to be positive?

    What an utterly ridiculously thing to say.
    We've always had a high education standard and exported more educated people because we didn't have enough places for them.

    Nobody is forcing anyone to emigrate...


  • #77
    djpbarry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    fat__tony wrote: »
    How on earth is forced emigration of skilled and educated young people deemed to be positive?
    Educated young people will always be inclined to migrate - there's only so much you can do with yourself in Ireland, regardless of the prevailing economic conditions.


  • #78
    Sand
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,011 ✭✭✭✭Sand


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    Still a positive in my book. We have historically been a big exporter of educated people and this country filled up with skilled and unskilled workers... maybe it's time we export our abundance of them to places where they are needed.

    :rolleyes:
    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    We've always had a high education standard and exported more educated people because we didn't have enough places for them.

    Nobody is forcing anyone to emigrate...

    Thats not true - its always been a clear part of the government strategy that insiders will be protected (The Croke Park agreement) whereas the outsiders, (foreigners and Irish alike) are expected to either **** off back where they came from or in the case of the Irish to do their part as we "export our abundance of them to places where they are needed".

    I'm trying to think of successful economies which viewed brain drain as the secret to their economic success...the last economy I can think of is West Africa, back around the 1600s-1700s.


  • #79
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,396 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    Sand wrote: »
    :rolleyes:



    Thats not true - its always been a clear part of the government strategy that insiders will be protected (The Croke Park agreement) whereas the outsiders, (foreigners and Irish alike) are expected to either **** off back where they came from or in the case of the Irish to do their part as we "export our abundance of them to places where they are needed".

    I'm trying to think of successful economies which viewed brain drain as the secret to their economic success...the last economy I can think of is West Africa, back around the 1600s-1700s.
    It's very common and has been for years that the best doctors trained in this country have moved to very successful positions in the US, UK and Canada... are you saying this negatively impacts us?


  • #80
    murphaph
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,030 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    It's very common and has been for years that the best doctors trained in this country have moved to very successful positions in the US, UK and Canada... are you saying this negatively impacts us?
    Of course it does. We pay to train them and then they practice elsewhere. How could this possibly be viewed in a positive light?


  • #81
    FreudianSlippers
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,396 ✭✭✭✭FreudianSlippers


    murphaph wrote: »
    Of course it does. We pay to train them and then they practice elsewhere. How could this possibly be viewed in a positive light?
    The more people that leave the less bitching we have to listen to. Sure, half the people on the dole are builders and labourers, not professionals anyway.
    Those who can't hack it will leave and the rest of us will be better off without them.

    The professionals that leave were always going to leave because we have an oversupply - recession or no, it always happens.


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  • #82
    easychair
    Closed Accounts Posts: 905 ✭✭✭easychair


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    The more people that leave the less bitching we have to listen to. Sure, half the people on the dole are builders and labourers, not professionals anyway.
    Those who can't hack it will leave and the rest of us will be better off without them.

    The professionals that leave were always going to leave because we have an oversupply - recession or no, it always happens.

    What an extraordinarily intemperate post, and full of clichés, implying as you do that those who emigrate, for whatever reasons, indulge themselves in more "bitching " than anyone else, that 50% of people on the dole are professionals and the rest builders and labourers, and that the reasons people emigrate from Ireland is because they can't "hack it" in Ireland.

    The governor of the Bank of England said yesterday "This is the most serious financial crisis we’ve seen, at least since the 1930s, if not ever.”

    We have to wake up to the fact that Ireland is in a double bind, and is in a precarious position. Not only are the governments finances in a worst state that virtually any other country, and those bad, and worsening, finances are deteriorating, but outside Ireland there is a world recession which, according to Mervyn King, is worse than any before.

    This thread asks if we have turned a corner, and the answer must be that "we" in Ireland have definitely not turned a corner, and "we" in the rest of the world have also definitely not turned a corner, and are unlikely to do so for a time.


  • #83
    djpbarry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    murphaph wrote: »
    Of course it does. We pay to train them and then they practice elsewhere. How could this possibly be viewed in a positive light?
    Because many will return with a wealth of experience. Ireland is a very small economy – emigration will always, always be a part of life there. Besides, it makes absolutely no sense for anyone, regardless of qualifications or experience, to sit around on the dole when work could be obtained elsewhere.
    easychair wrote: »
    ...that 50% of people on the dole are professionals and the rest builders and labourers...
    That’s actually a huge underestimate. According to CSO figures, only about 5% of those unemployed in the period April – June 2010 had a third-level degree.
    easychair wrote: »
    Not only are the governments finances in a worst state that virtually any other country, and those bad, and worsening, finances are deteriorating...
    How could the public finances be considered to be worsening when the deficit is being reduced?


  • #84
    murphaph
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,030 ✭✭✭✭murphaph


    djpbarry wrote: »
    Because many will return with a wealth of experience. Ireland is a very small economy – emigration will always, always be a part of life there. Besides, it makes absolutely no sense for anyone, regardless of qualifications or experience, to sit around on the dole when work could be obtained elsewhere.
    Absolutely, but it is certainly not a positive that people must leave to find work. It is a sign of a weak economy when citizens must emigrate. Denmark is also a small economy, but the citizens don't generally have to leave the country to find work. There are many more examples like Denmark but emigration has been a handy safety valve for Irish politicians for so long now that people just accept that.


  • #85
    fat__tony
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 587 ✭✭✭fat__tony


    FreudianSlippers wrote: »
    The more people that leave the less bitching we have to listen to. Sure, half the people on the dole are builders and labourers, not professionals anyway.
    Those who can't hack it will leave and the rest of us will be better off without them.

    The professionals that leave were always going to leave because we have an oversupply - recession or no, it always happens.

    Your ignorance and attitude is pathetic.

    Easy to see you have a cushy job untouched by the current economic climate.


  • #86
    djpbarry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,104 ✭✭✭✭djpbarry


    murphaph wrote: »
    Absolutely, but it is certainly not a positive that people must leave to find work.
    Ok, but I would be hesitant to conclude that everyone who is leaving the country is being forced to do so.


  • #87
    Sand
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,011 ✭✭✭✭Sand


    djpbarry wrote: »
    Ok, but I would be hesitant to conclude that everyone who is leaving the country is being forced to do so.

    If you mean "forced" as in being kidnapped and dragged in chains to the airport and deported, no, theyre not being forced.

    On the other hand, when options are being pursued so that the interests of insiders are prioritised, so that very few outsiders with skill and ambition will actually be given any opportunity to work in Ireland then yes, they are being forced to leave. Much as refugees from any disaster zone - economic or otherwise - are forced to leave by the circumstances they are forced into.

    And in difficult times, thats always been the response of "official Ireland". As Lenihan Snr said back in the 1980s, this island isnt big enough for all of us...only the insiders. None of the Lenihan clan will ever have to leave Ireland to find work. Only outsiders.

    Interestingly, just to demonstrate a point I googled the phrase "emigration will solve our problems". Which is the spoken, and unspoken, policy in Ireland in response to unemployment.

    Heres the first post that came up .... recognise the arguments and views? How emigration is viewed as a fact of life, a certainty, a postive thing for all concered. Almost like reading a thread on Ireland and how we do our bit to "export our abundance of them to places where they are needed". Thats where we are at, socially and economically when its claimed that habitual emigration is in someway postive.


  • #88
    Yahew
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,491 ✭✭✭Yahew


    Emigration in Ireland is not that big of a deal anymore, is it? A person leaving London for Dublin after work on Friday will get there before someone from Donegal leaving Dublin gets home. he might get home before some Dubliners get home.


  • #89
    irishh_bob
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,700 ✭✭✭irishh_bob


    Yahew wrote: »
    Emigration in Ireland is not that big of a deal anymore, is it? A person leaving London for Dublin after work on Friday will get there before someone from Donegal leaving Dublin gets home. he might get home before some Dubliners get home.

    agreed and with modern communications , email , mobile phone , social networking sites like this , the world is a tiny place , one big village , i lived in new zealand for around six months in 1998 , back then the internet was in its infancy , most people didnt have mobile phones and texting wasnt even invented , i remember only talking to my folks every few weeks for ten mins on a payphone on some street and i only spoke to one off my mates by phone during my entire time away


  • #90
    whelan1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 11,786 ✭✭✭✭whelan1


    going on a different tangent, agriculture is booming , why oh why wont the government do something to promote it and get more jobs in the industry :confused:


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  • #91
    Sand
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,011 ✭✭✭✭Sand


    As someone who picked ragworth and stones from fields across Ireland as a child and a teenager, Id point out:

    - For labour intensive tasks theres always some ****ing dumb Dub cousins down for the summer to pick ragworth and stones. Or slave labour.

    - For all other tasks its capital intensive - machinery- not labour intensive.


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