Any concrete costed measures for reducing €16 billon hole in the public finances?

relax carry on · 28-03-2012 08:41PM

Thanks for all the replies. Thought I might get a few more of the posters from the Anti House hold charge on but there you go.
So the general consensus seems to be cuts alone rather than taxation and cuts to close the 16 Billon gap. Do you really think there is 16 billon of savings to be made by reducing the public sector pay/pension bill; the Social Welfare bill and "wastage" in the administration of the country? Surely taxation must form part of the solution. And not just the "tax the rich" solution which keeps coming up.

kippy · 28-03-2012 08:46PM

relax carry on wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. Thought I might get a few more of the posters from the Anti House hold charge on but there you go.
So the general consensus seems to be cuts alone rather than taxation and cuts to close the 16 Billon gap. Do you really think there is 16 billon of savings to be made by reducing the public sector pay/pension bill; the Social Welfare bill and "wastage" in the administration of the country? Surely taxation must form part of the solution. And not just the "tax the rich" solution which keeps coming up.

Nah, there is a need for taxation as well, obviously, however pouring taxtake into bloated and inefficient systems is just a waste in most peoples opinion.
Sustainable taxtake is required and this would include water and housing taxation, however the communications that the housing charge pays for local amenities etc and local amenities will be cut if the charge isn't paid annoys me.
As stated above why just charge a homeowner for a local amenity, everyone uses then, tenants, the families of homeowners, etc etc.
Call a spade a spade, then I'd be somewhat happier paying it, but I wont be looking forward to paying it next year when its up on a couple of grand.

Income tax cannot take a huge amount more, looking at the figures, VAT is too high as it is, and there is too much uncertainty out there.

squod · 28-03-2012 08:49PM

relax carry on wrote: »

Do you really think there is 16 billon of savings to be made by reducing the public sector pay/pension bill;

€186bn due in pension payments alone. So yeah. It's possible. Hiring process engineers to fix process problems in each of the departments would be at very least cost neutral and at very best solve some of the funding issues facing this country in the medium and long term.

Taking another look at the wind pumped hydro projects should be done. I honestly don't understand why we're ignoring this. It should be a nice little earner for us.

Doc Ruby · 28-03-2012 08:51PM

kippy wrote: »

however pouring taxtake into bloated and inefficient systems is just a waste in most peoples opinion.

This, for me, is the most important point. I don't mind paying taxes but I demand value for money.

kippy · 28-03-2012 08:54PM

Doc Ruby wrote: »

This, for me, is the most important point. I don't mind paying taxes but I demand value for money.

And this is now a key issue.
People have less and less disposable income and they have a right to know where and how the money they lose in direct and indirect taxes is spent.
Rightly so might I add.

We demand more accountability (proper accountability) and it is very slow coming round tbh.

Chucky the tree · 28-03-2012 09:12PM

Wibbs wrote: »

. A large babyboomer wave came along between the mid 80s-90's and they needed housing and services etc.

A baby-boom actually never occurred in Ireland during that time.

kippy · 28-03-2012 09:17PM

Chucky the tree wrote: »

A baby-boom actually never occurred in Ireland during that time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland
You can see when the rates were high, moreso around 1980, the popes children so to speak.
These people were in their 20's during the celtic tiger era.
A large part of the demand for housing was also driven by people returning to Ireland, or those who came to Ireland from Europe and abroad to work.

Chucky the tree · 28-03-2012 09:23PM

kippy wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Republic_of_Ireland
You can see when the rates were high, moreso around 1980, the popes children so to speak.
These people were in their 20's during the celtic tiger era.
A large part of the demand for housing was also driven by people returning to Ireland, or those who came to Ireland from Europe and abroad to work.

Not sure I'd say they were high in 1980. They were the same as they had been the past 50 years or so.

28-03-2012 09:54PM

relax carry on wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. Thought I might get a few more of the posters from the Anti House hold charge on but there you go.
So the general consensus seems to be cuts alone rather than taxation and cuts to close the 16 Billon gap. Do you really think there is 16 billon of savings to be made by reducing the public sector pay/pension bill; the Social Welfare bill and "wastage" in the administration of the country? Surely taxation must form part of the solution. And not just the "tax the rich" solution which keeps coming up.

Here's a thought. The gap is something like €16 billion. The public sector pay bill is something like €16 billion. Let's pretend for a moment you could legally execute public servants, with no comeback in terms of compensation or anything like that. In fact, because I'm feeling particularly Genghis Khan-ish about the PS this evening, I'm also going to say that we won't waste any money giving their widows/widowers and orphans any pensions. It's extreme I know, but bear with me, and let's see how the sums work out.

If we shot dead half the public service, that's about 150,000 people, we'd save €8 billion, right?

Actually, wrong. We'd cut spending by €8 billion, but we'd also cut revenues, because the people we've just shot dead pay back a lot of that €8 billion to the Exchequer in PAYE, PRSI, USC, pension contributions and indirect taxes on their spending. It's hard to say exactly how much, but if you were to guess a figure of about 45% you wouldn't be too far wrong.

So we'd cut spending by €8 billion (yaaaaaaayy!) and cut Exchequer revenues by about €3.5 billion (boooooooooo!) - leaving us with a net saving of about €4.5 billion. That's a bit disappointing - works out at oooooh, about €30K per year per execution - but given the parlous state of the public finances an opportunity to save €4.5 billion is not to be dismissed lightly.

So, in summary, here's the really unnerving thought. If we went out and put bullets in the heads of 150,000 Irish public servants, we'd still have a Budget gap of €11.5 billion. :eek:

With that in mind, would someone please answer the obvious question? If shooting half the public service dead won't save the country, why are we being so utterly naive as to think that any of this EU/IMF guff actually will?

Doc Ruby · 28-03-2012 10:18PM

Deleted User wrote: »

The public sector pay bill is something like €16 billion.

So what you're saying is the pay per public sector worker is €53,000 or thereabouts? Interesting.

kippy · 28-03-2012 10:22PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Here's a thought. The gap is something like €16 billion. The public sector pay bill is something like €16 billion. Let's pretend for a moment you could legally execute public servants, with no comeback in terms of compensation or anything like that. In fact, because I'm feeling particularly Genghis Khan-ish about the PS this evening, I'm also going to say that we won't waste any money giving their widows/widowers and orphans any pensions. It's extreme I know, but bear with me, and let's see how the sums work out.

If we shot dead half the public service, that's about 150,000 people, we'd save €8 billion, right?

Actually, wrong. We'd cut spending by €8 billion, but we'd also cut revenues, because the people we've just shot dead pay back a lot of that €8 billion to the Exchequer in PAYE, PRSI, USC, pension contributions and indirect taxes on their spending. It's hard to say exactly how much, but if you were to guess a figure of about 45% you wouldn't be too far wrong.

So we'd cut spending by €8 billion (yaaaaaaayy!) and cut Exchequer revenues by about €3.5 billion (boooooooooo!) - leaving us with a net saving of about €4.5 billion. That's a bit disappointing - works out at oooooh, about €30K per year per execution - but given the parlous state of the public finances an opportunity to save €4.5 billion is not to be dismissed lightly.

So, in summary, here's the really unnerving thought. If we went out and put bullets in the heads of 150,000 Irish public servants, we'd still have a Budget gap of €11.5 billion. :eek:

With that in mind, would someone please answer the obvious question? If shooting half the public service dead won't save the country, why are we being so utterly naive as to think that any of this EU/IMF guff actually will?

I do believe that the goverment (whoever that happens to be,) the IMF and the EU are assuming that at some point in the next 4-8 years there will be a global and a national bounce in the economy due to some form of major growth. As such the really nasty decisions are being put off for as long as possible. If that means we need another bailout, then so be it.
Of course, this can kicking rarely ends up well.

Wibbs · 28-03-2012 10:56PM

Chucky the tree wrote: »

A baby-boom actually never occurred in Ireland during that time.

Of course not, that's why I said "babyboomer". The babies were born(roughly) between the late 60's to mid 70's. We were famous in the 80's for having the youngest population percentage in Europe.

28-03-2012 10:57PM

Doc Ruby wrote: »

So what you're saying is the pay per public sector worker is €53,000 or thereabouts? Interesting.

What I'm saying is that if we execute half the PS, the country is still screwed. With that in mind, do you have any ideas that might actually help deal with the big hole in the public finances?

dxhound2005 · 28-03-2012 11:40PM

relax carry on wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. Thought I might get a few more of the posters from the Anti House hold charge on but there you go.
So the general consensus seems to be cuts alone rather than taxation and cuts to close the 16 Billon gap. Do you really think there is 16 billon of savings to be made by reducing the public sector pay/pension bill; the Social Welfare bill and "wastage" in the administration of the country? Surely taxation must form part of the solution. And not just the "tax the rich" solution which keeps coming up.

There have been cuts in PS numbers and the overall wage bill and this is continuing.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2011/1205/budget3-business.html

Because of reduced numbers, pay cuts and the ongoing pension related deduction, the overall cost of paying public servants will have fallen by €3.5 billion or 20% over the seven year period from 2008 to 2015.

We have a bigger population than ever before and even with the unemployment numbers now there are 1.8 million at work compared to 1.2 million 20 years ago. These factors would suggest that it will be difficult to reduce the PS numbers much more than what is planned.

Pensions weren't reduced yet and Child Benefit at €1700 per child per year tax free is still very generous. These are among the big ticket items in SW spending that will probably be reduced in the next budget. Income tax could rise as well.

The country will just keep borrowing and going deeper into debt just like nearly every country in the world. I don't understand economics but if you take the long view it seems that booms and busts just repeat themselves in the capitalist system. We will almost certainly have another housing bubble in the next 20 to 40 years.

If you take the really long view the whole place was covered by a mile of ice 10000 years ago and will probably be covered by a mile of ice sometime in the next 10000 years. I remember real poverty in my time and what we have now is nothing like that. People here mostly don't realise how well off they are compared to anytime in the past and compared to the shocking poverty endured by hundreds of millions of people in other countries.

Any concrete costed measures for reducing €16 billon hole in the public finances?

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