Measures in the works for wealthy to "hand back" their children's allowance.

murphaph · 14-08-2012 3:37pm

Deleted User wrote: »

This is not a black and white issue. You can't magically apply a figure of €10k, €20k or €50k or whatever, and say "right, that's all you need, full stop, no ifs, no buts". It requires a much more sophisticated system that's capable of looking at individual situations within society, considering many factors, and coming up with an approach that best shares limited resources out to those who need them the most.

Government can't function like that. Unfortunately arbitrary limits are a part of everyday life all over the world and will remain so. There are certainly people out there in the same tax band as me who "need" their pay more than I do, but govt cant't realistically cater to individual needs like this.

LeinsterDub · 14-08-2012 3:44pm

antoobrien wrote: »

I work in enterprise systems, that's an extremely naive approach. The technical issue is a significant one, performing operations across different databases, possibly using different technologies and almost certainly using different data schemas and structures, is not a trivial exercise. The company I work for makes millions selling analytics software.

There's also the complication of calculating the household income, indeed do we just stop at parents or do we include adult children in the calculations. How doe the various schemas deal with these relationships?

But more importantly than mere technical issues there is also a legal issue, which is a much larger problem. Unless they've changed the law lately Data Protection prevents information given to Revenue can't be passed to DSP & vice versa.

The technical issue to do correctly are for sure more significant than I outlined. However my approach would have the desired results. List of PPS who are eligible for the payment, said list given to DSP. My point was that if the political will was there a down and dirty approach would work.

Weren't all the government Databases checked for the household charge?

Dannyboy83 · 14-08-2012 3:53pm

I couldn't control my finances in this manner; it's wide open to fluctuation.
How is a country supposed to do it?

10,000 people hand it back this month. x amount saved.
6 months later, Property tax of €1000 p.a. introduced.
10,000 people demand it back again. x amount lost.

We elect a government to make decisions. This is anarchic.

Godge · 14-08-2012 4:02pm

murphaph wrote: »

It should be abolished as a cash payment altogether if the intention is that this money really finds its way to children.

The money should be spent directly on children at school for those of school going age (books, meals, uniforms etc.) and should be spent on providing subsidised childcare for those of preschool years.

People on the dole presumably need childcare as well so they can search for employment, right?

Logical, coherent and sensible post, therefore not likely to gain much support. However, I would favour such an approach.

It would mean that those that could afford to save it would not benefit, that those who have decamped to the UK or Poland would not benefit and that those who drink and smoke it rather than spending on their kids would not benefit. All three of those categories have been the subject of criticism on these boards and elsewhere in relation to the payment of child benefit.

If the provision of uniforms etc. was restricted to public schools only, this would be a further was of ensuring that wealthy people who send their kids to private schools would not be benefitting.

14-08-2012 4:09pm

antoobrien wrote: »

I work in enterprise systems, that's an extremely naive approach. The technical issue is a significant one....there is also a legal issue, which is a much larger problem...

LeinsterDub wrote: »

My point was that if the political will was there a down and dirty approach would work.

I think these two points are a good example of the kinds of opposing thinking that is going on from different standpoints on this issue. The politicians are seeing the possible risks, downsides, and areas for a PR disaster to flair up in any such project, with an over eager opposition watching their every move, while the supporters of change and reform are just clamouring for something to be done and don't understand why someone doesn't just take a spoonful of cop on and get on with something with such clear, measurable benefits.

The technology for such a solution is indeed complex, but it's doable, and it happens in the private sector routinely when there's a solid cost/benefit assessment backing it up. That's not the point here. This is an issue of lack of political will, not one of technology or capability, which is what the minister would have you believe the reason for the delay is.

The political will is not there to tackle this issue because of the various political problems in the areas of social inequality, data protection, civil service work practices and inflexibility, and general PR fallouts which all have the potential to arise, and give the opposition a field day.

Why stir up a hornets nest if you can just ignore it for someone else to have to handle a few years from now?

Democracy is a wonderful system until politics enters into it :mad:

jimmycrackcorm · 14-08-2012 6:22pm

Solair wrote: »

You can already 'hand it back', by just not claiming it in the first place.

Nobody forces you to go down to the post office and apply for child allowance if you're on a good income and don't need it.

All well and grand if you have crystal ball and can forsee not needing child benefit for 18 years

n97 mini · 14-08-2012 10:12pm

It would make a lot more sense if it wasn't given out by default when the birth is registered, and people had to go to some effort to apply for it. Same with the old age pension and any other automatic social welfare payments.

Lawrence1895 · 14-08-2012 10:34pm

As if someone of the rich ones would give money back without any fight. Suddenly they will claim, they lost their money to a developer, or transfer their money abroad, or something like that.

Seriously, every benefit should be means tested, it's no big deal to deal with that work wise. No benefit for the rich ones, the highest rate for low earners.

_Kaiser_ · 14-08-2012 10:48pm

I think dharma200 had it pretty much spot on above.

Another thread where every keyboard economist in this place comes out with better ways to spend "their taxes" :rolleyes: As dharma200 accurately points out:

What might seem like 'worthy' ways to spend it for one family could be the breaking of another.

Yes it needs to be looked at so that those who CAN well afford to do without it don't get it, but a "voluntary opt-out" isn't the answer to this, nor are all these bright ideas from people above who clearly have never found themselves in the situations suggested in dharma200's post. Means testing seems therefore the logical way to go - as long as those tests are in fact realistic and fair - not something we do well in this country (what with the attitude that those on the dole/less well off are second-class citizens not entitled to the same rights or even basic civility of those who "pay to keep them")

It's painfully clear from many of the posts on threads like this (and the recently locked "we don't know what austerity is" thread is another example), that a lot of the posters here seem to forget that real people are affected by these changes (in some cases significantly from even "small" reductions) - it's not in fact an academic paper exercise that doesn't matter (although given some of the opinions on this forum I'm glad for a change that ultimately nothing that is written here will actually matter!).

I hope that some of you never find yourselves on the dole struggling to pay your debts or even put food on the table because I fear that you wouldn't last a week (for transparency, I'm currently working and could be considered "well paid" but I've also been on the dole in the last few years too. Not for a second would I presume that because I'm lucky to be working again , I'm now qualified to "pass judgement" on what those who aren't can or can't do with the pittance they get - for which in the vast majority of cases they've actually paid for through years of taxation)

So for the mods - and if this is better directed to PM/feedback so be it - but given some of the trivial reasons that other threads are closed, why is it that this sort of "holier than thou" keyboard economist trolling is repeatedly permitted on what is supposedly a "serious" forum? Is a little decency and respect really that much to ask?

Laminations · 14-08-2012 11:54pm

I don't consider it trolling for posters to point out the lunacy in child benefit being seen as a top up payment to be used on (insert any expense here). It is supposed to have a dedicated use and whether someone is spending it on heating or cigarettes it's misusing it, though I'd obviously have sympathy for the former. There are other benefits and state help people can get for essentials. And it is not trolling to point out that the dole should not be used (or maintained at a level where people need it to use)to pay debts. Me saying this doesn't mean I don't think it's sad people find themselves in such a position. But seriously if you bought a house during the boom and then lost your job, for how many years should the dole be paying your interest repayments, keeping you in a house you can no longer afford?

Child benefit being funnelled into schools and child care programmes is a good idea. It would help pay for meals, books, clothes etc and make sure the money was directed at children.

woodoo · 15-08-2012 12:06am

Pure farce. If that is all she can come up with then God help us.

_Kaiser_ · 15-08-2012 12:54am

Laminations wrote: »

I don't consider it trolling for posters to point out the lunacy in child benefit being seen as a top up payment to be used on (insert any expense here). It is supposed to have a dedicated use and whether someone is spending it on heating or cigarettes it's misusing it, though I'd obviously have sympathy for the former. There are other benefits and state help people can get for essentials. And it is not trolling to point out that the dole should not be used (or maintained at a level where people need it to use)to pay debts. Me saying this doesn't mean I don't think it's sad people find themselves in such a position. But seriously if you bought a house during the boom and then lost your job, for how many years should the dole be paying your interest repayments, keeping you in a house you can no longer afford?

Child benefit being funnelled into schools and child care programmes is a good idea. It would help pay for meals, books, clothes etc and make sure the money was directed at children.

Unfortunately though, while I can see the point you're trying to make, it's not that simple..

Heating for example benefits the child. I agree that the cash shouldn't be going on cigarettes, booze etc but how are you going to police that? Issue everyone with identity cards that they have to swipe at the bar/cash desk to see if they're authorised? (shades of Orwell there)

I disagree with funneling it into schools given how much waste already goes on there (having worked in the education sector myself). Plus why should this money be used to prop up the child care system - I presume most of it would go to private companies right,in which case we shortly end up with a similar situation to private rented accommodation and rent allowance driving prices up. Or did you mean the government would provide lots of "free" childcare?

My point is that these suggestions aren't practical when you work them through even a little and therefore throwing them out ad nauseum in threads like this does nothing except further enforcing this "we know better, just because" attitude - I don't mean specifically you incidentally

By your logic why don't we just take children of people on the dole into care? That way we can be sure any money spent goes on the children right?

Welease · 15-08-2012 7:34am

LeinsterDub wrote: »

The technical issue to do correctly are for sure more significant than I outlined. However my approach would have the desired results. List of PPS who are eligible for the payment, said list given to DSP. My point was that if the political will was there a down and dirty approach would work.

Weren't all the government Databases checked for the household charge?

Your proposed solution is a good example of why this is more complicated than people believe (and it also worth nothing that no posters have any idea of the data structures or data held within the systems on which to base a solution)

CB is registered and paid to the mother not the father. Your solution would create a list which would still include the non working wives of high paid fathers i.e you would only remove a fraction of the people you aimed to remove.

monkeypants · 15-08-2012 7:55am

Doesn't means testing require a lot of admin? In which case, there'll be a huge cost. But still, it'll be more jobs in the public sector.

Laminations · 15-08-2012 10:23am

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

Unfortunately though, while I can see the point you're trying to make, it's not that simple..

Heating for example benefits the child. I agree that the cash shouldn't be going on cigarettes, booze etc but how are you going to police that? Issue everyone with identity cards that they have to swipe at the bar/cash desk to see if they're authorised? (shades of Orwell there)

I disagree with funneling it into schools given how much waste already goes on there (having worked in the education sector myself). Plus why should this money be used to prop up the child care system - I presume most of it would go to private companies right,in which case we shortly end up with a similar situation to private rented accommodation and rent allowance driving prices up. Or did you mean the government would provide lots of "free" childcare?

My point is that these suggestions aren't practical when you work them through even a little and therefore throwing them out ad nauseum in threads like this does nothing except further enforcing this "we know better, just because" attitude - I don't mean specifically you incidentally

By your logic why don't we just take children of people on the dole into care? That way we can be sure any money spent goes on the children right?

I can see your point and agree there's an oversupply of threads focused on the unemployed, public service etc but at the moment given the budget situation I can see why people are debating government spending and these are the two biggest areas. And I agree that many suggestions are pretty poorly thought out but this idea has some merit IMO and I don't think that your one post counters its practicality as those few lines can't be considered a work through.

First, on your last point, the dole is not a child specific payment, it has it's purpose though and is intended to maintain people between jobs with supplements for reskilling, vacs to education etc. it is not intended to pay mortgage or car debts.

Second, kids should be taken off sole recipients if they are being neglected abused, just like they should be taken off employed people if social services find they are being neglected or abused. But with this CB suggestion, children would benefit whether their parents are employed or not.

Second, waste in schools is easier to identify, shine a spotlight on and control than waste in individual families, which you point out is difficult to control without going Orwellian.

Third, the child care situation needs regulation and intervention from government. Whether that means the setting of prices, whether it means a discussion on insurance costs, whether it means subsiding families with child care providers that charge a certain lower rate (incentivising price drops rather than enforcing them) or whether it means direct provision is all up for discussion. It wouldn't involve giving private crèches any more money anyway as it'd just mean the parents would be getting subsidised so it'd be less of a burden to them. That'd allow more people to work or look for work.

Dave! · 15-08-2012 10:27am

Scofflaw wrote: »

That bit tends to pass by in something of a blur...I suppose you could theoretically pass up the opportunity at that point, but faced with a new baby and a tired mother (or as the tired mother) one probably won't.

cordially,
Scofflaw

But is there no mechanism already in place for cancelling it? What if a recipient changes their bank account details or something, or if they want to change from it going to their bank a/c to collecting it at the post office? If hypothetically they change it to collection, and then don't collect it, what happens?
I've heard before, but haven't researched it, that uncollected social welfare money is left untouched by the department, i.e. it can't go elsewhere.

Regardless, this is a major cop-out... It certainly doesn't look like there'll be any changes to child benefit in the budget.

Laminations · 15-08-2012 10:32am

I'm kind of hoping it's some form of reverse kite flying. Gauging the attitude and anger out there of them doing essentially nothing on this issue so they can work out the appetite for reforming CB (especially for those whose children dont need it)

antoobrien · 15-08-2012 10:33am

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

Yes it needs to be looked at so that those who CAN well afford to do without it don't get it, but a "voluntary opt-out" isn't the answer to this

Without being privy to the DSP's medium to long term plans for various payments I think it's a bit unfair to dismiss it like that. It could be the first step to introducing a means test - a measure which takes time to set up and settle in procedures. What better sample set to test it on that anybody that opts out and tries to get back in later. Looking at that suggestion practically, it's probably useless for savings, but a good training exercise none the less.

Looking for a silver bullet to ensure that SW is fair and equitable is a bit like looking for a fair tax. A great many people I've talked to seem to think that the only fair tax is one that they don't pay - income tax, usc, prsi, excise, vat, cgt, cat, motor tax, household charges, bin charges, water charges........

But the thing is there's always somebody who's going to be impacted negatively. I had an interesting conversation with somebody at work recently when trying to find a good cap level for stopping payment. We suggested a yearly family income of €100,000. The amount of excuses and possible loopholes that were brought up (not able to afford a, b, c, d etc) was frightening. Let me re-iterate this is for families earning €100,000 per year. At those kinds of incomes an extra €140 per month is pocket change, but still the person arguing the point was adamant that it should not be introduced for anyone.

On the other hand I know several families that pay the CB payments directly into a savings account and every year convert a lot of the savings into savings bonds in order to prepare for the future education of the children. While it looks like there's no difference, the money doesn't leave the exchequer until the savings/savings bonds are cashed.

For the record I'm single with no children, but I think that it should be means tested based on the family income. Where couples are married/in a civil partnership, the revenue is supposed to be notified (for single/joint assessment), there is a link between PPS no's, so it's easy to get the income of the family. It will naturally be more complicated for unmarried couples.

I think it should be phased, with full payments ending at average wage & 50% (currently about €55k). After that it should be stepped back in increments of 1% per extra €1,000 income until 100,000 where it should just stop.

Also as an alternative to cash payments there are two things I can think of
- Offering tax credits to those in employment
- Creating an official savings scheme like the one mentioned above, that can be cashed to pay for education costs (open to top up payments if desired)

murphaph · 15-08-2012 11:26am

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

Unfortunately though, while I can see the point you're trying to make, it's not that simple..

Heating for example benefits the child. I agree that the cash shouldn't be going on cigarettes, booze etc but how are you going to police that? Issue everyone with identity cards that they have to swipe at the bar/cash desk to see if they're authorised? (shades of Orwell there)

I disagree with funneling it into schools given how much waste already goes on there (having worked in the education sector myself). Plus why should this money be used to prop up the child care system - I presume most of it would go to private companies right,in which case we shortly end up with a similar situation to private rented accommodation and rent allowance driving prices up. Or did you mean the government would provide lots of "free" childcare?

My point is that these suggestions aren't practical when you work them through even a little and therefore throwing them out ad nauseum in threads like this does nothing except further enforcing this "we know better, just because" attitude - I don't mean specifically you incidentally

By your logic why don't we just take children of people on the dole into care? That way we can be sure any money spent goes on the children right?

Your post doesn't make any sense tbh. If I pay for the heating oil with CB or it is paid directly to some private creche instead of CB being a cash payment, it still finds its way to the private sector who ultimately provide everything consumed in the state

bamboozle · 15-08-2012 11:52am

antoobrien wrote: »

Without being privy to the DSP's medium to long term plans for various payments I think it's a bit unfair to dismiss it like that. It could be the first step to introducing a means test - a measure which takes time to set up and settle in procedures. What better sample set to test it on that anybody that opts out and tries to get back in later. Looking at that suggestion practically, it's probably useless for savings, but a good training exercise none the less.

Looking for a silver bullet to ensure that SW is fair and equitable is a bit like looking for a fair tax. A great many people I've talked to seem to think that the only fair tax is one that they don't pay - income tax, usc, prsi, excise, vat, cgt, cat, motor tax, household charges, bin charges, water charges........

But the thing is there's always somebody who's going to be impacted negatively. I had an interesting conversation with somebody at work recently when trying to find a good cap level for stopping payment. We suggested a yearly family income of €100,000. The amount of excuses and possible loopholes that were brought up (not able to afford a, b, c, d etc) was frightening. Let me re-iterate this is for families earning €100,000 per year. At those kinds of incomes an extra €140 per month is pocket change, but still the person arguing the point was adamant that it should not be introduced for anyone.

On the other hand I know several families that pay the CB payments directly into a savings account and every year convert a lot of the savings into savings bonds in order to prepare for the future education of the children. While it looks like there's no difference, the money doesn't leave the exchequer until the savings/savings bonds are cashed.

For the record I'm single with no children, but I think that it should be means tested based on the family income. Where couples are married/in a civil partnership, the revenue is supposed to be notified (for single/joint assessment), there is a link between PPS no's, so it's easy to get the income of the family. It will naturally be more complicated for unmarried couples.

I think it should be phased, with full payments ending at average wage & 50% (currently about €55k). After that it should be stepped back in increments of 1% per extra €1,000 income until 100,000 where it should just stop.

Also as an alternative to cash payments there are two things I can think of
- Offering tax credits to those in employment
- Creating an official savings scheme like the one mentioned above, that can be cashed to pay for education costs (open to top up payments if desired)

that's a really smart idea, we're currently paying 2b a year in children's allowances and for some bizarre reason the allowances increase for the 2nd & 3rd etc children even though the cost of raising kids no 2, 3 etc is less for the parents.

there's no reason why €0.5b cannot be cut from this annual cost, we're 4 years into the recession and no politicians have shown the guts to get means testing up and running.

my suggestions would be means testing
failing that:
tax credit for parents with kids
allowance for kid no. 2, 25% less than kid 1, allowance for kid 3, 25% less than kid 2 and allowance for kids thereafter cut by 60% of what they currently are. with no household getting more than €500PM in childrens allowances.
some form of tax rebate for parents who have to put their kids in creches

Sleepy · 15-08-2012 12:05pm

I have to say I actually like the idea of scrapping it entirely and having school uniforms, books, copies etc. even healthy packed lunches provided by the state.

It would give the department greater power to curb price gouging by publishers issuing "updated" versions of their textbooks every couple of years, power to leverage their then monopolistic buying power to get the best value from suppliers.

This is money that parents have to spend anyway so what they're currently spending on this stuff could be allocated towards necessities they may be currently relying on the children's benefit for.

Ideologically it also goes a little way towards balancing the playing field for schoolchildren which is something I'm keen on. As it stands the children of better off families are more likely to be better provided for in this manner than those from disadvantaged areas. I'm particularly thinking nutritionally here, if John is being fed a healthy diet and Mary is just getting whatever her parent(s) can afford (those on low budgets typically buying more higher processed, higher GI crap) John is more likely to have a decent attention span than Mary.

15-08-2012 12:16pm

Welease wrote: »

Your proposed solution is a good example of why this is more complicated than people believe (and it also worth nothing that no posters have any idea of the data structures or data held within the systems on which to base a solution)

I think this is missing the main point. The technicalities involved are not relevant to the overall discussion. I know enough about public sector data integration services to know that this is a complicated but feasible initiative that would take time, but would be doable. There are divisions of major multinationals in Ireland at the moment for whom this is bread and butter stuff. It's certainly not the lengthy impossibility that the minister is making it out to be, or more to the point, a justification for doing nothing and minimizing political risk while scores of millions of euros of taxpayer's money are wasted.

In my opinion, the minister is being duplicitous here. On one hand she is ostensibly supporting the change, so as not to bee seen as opposing it and standing in the way of progress, however she and her party colleagues are implicitly aware of the political minefield it could bring about, with dangers for their political popularity from many different camps, and so is hiding behind a vague statement like "such a system could take years to implement" in order to delay any proactive decision and perpetuate the wasteful, but politically relatively safe status quo.

To my mind it's more of the same cowardly, gutless politics which panders to various vested interests with large votes instead of having the courage to take a really progressive step. It's this kind of cowardly, self-serving politics which has our country so corrupt it's almost beyond saving.

BOHSBOHS · 15-08-2012 12:21pm

cut child benefit for 100k+ earners ?????
5.07% earn over 100k
105million gross saving
but will be less due to:
(a)manpower/admin cost of means testing 1,136,065 child benefit payments ? , people seem to be dismissing this cost ( DSP struggling as it is!)
(b) undeclaration of selfemployment income to go under 100k threshold ( and associated lost income tax revenue)
(c) strategic separations in order to go sub 100k

net savings would be hardly worth the effort

Farmer Pudsey · 15-08-2012 12:38pm

In GB they were considering the same thing that CB would be Means tested /taxed. They have given up on the Idea as it is virtually impossible to implement a fair system.

The issue with means testing/taxing is do you use one income or rwo. How do you access people who are living togeather but have seperate addresses and use them for tax porposes. A young couple PAYE on 110K/year, large mortage and creshe fees are they more in need than a two self employed who are showing an income of 90K small mortagage.

If implemented at 100K the amount saved will be a small and will effect PAYE earners more than any other sector. It will also allow a situtation to develop where some well off familys will be able to draw the benifit by being able to work around the conditions.

Most familys sort there money in different ways if you are a CS you may have deductions from salary that goes to saving/holiday money and use the CB to pay the ESB and school costs. If you are in the building industry and gettiong paid by cheque at the end of the week you may use the CB to save for that holiday but use the cheque to do day to day spending or if you are the couple in the first example above you may use the CB for that night one a month that you go out for a meal, a couple of drinks, taxi home and pay for the child minder. All the story's that are about the way CB is used is an urban myth to an extent.

On another note look at the way grants to 3rd level a little above 50K you get nothing, at 22K you get about 8.5K/child/year. Now take it that you have 2.4 kids to go to college for 4.5 years each over 10 years. That is equal to 9180/year. The family below 22K gets everything the the family above 50k get nothing who is the best off.

As an old friend of mine would say with a ciggerette in his mouth ''think about it''

antoobrien · 15-08-2012 1:10pm

BOHSBOHS wrote: »

cut child benefit for 100k+ earners ?????
5.07% earn over 100k
105million gross saving

Not to be sniffed at for something that's easily done.

BOHSBOHS wrote: »

but will be less due to:
(a)manpower/admin cost of means testing 1,136,065 child benefit payments ? , people seem to be dismissing this cost ( DSP struggling as it is!)

Everyone in the country has a PPS no, revenue & DSP already know about them and the relationships between the PPS nos, so it becomes an excercise in Data mining and analytics. Not a trivial one, but by no means overwhealmingly difficult.

BOHSBOHS wrote: »

(b) undeclaration of selfemployment income to go under 100k threshold ( and associated lost income tax revenue)
(c) strategic separations in order to go sub 100k

The vast majority of the PAYE net are employees, rather than being self employed. Strategic separations etc, hell if you read some of the other threads regarding SW we have that problem in spades with cohabiting single parents. Not a good enough reason not to do it.

BOHSBOHS wrote: »

net savings would be hardly worth the effort

The cost there will be mostly capital costs to set it up and train operators. After that it's just wages. A good government-wide IT system will pay for itself in savings in 2 years.

decmanning · 15-08-2012 1:43pm

"A young couple PAYE on 110K large mortage"
then dont take out a large mortgage, when i bought a house the banks were offering me massive mortgages but i knew if i ever got a cut in my wages then i would not be able to afford it so i chose a house with a price similar to my means, you cant expect the government to fork out for you just becasue you chose to buy a big house with a big price tag

monkeypants · 15-08-2012 1:51pm

bamboozle wrote: »

tax credit for parents with kids

This.

Also an incentive to work.

15-08-2012 4:35pm

antoobrien wrote: »

A good government-wide IT system will pay for itself in savings in 2 years.

Agree with this. A 3 to 5 year cost benefit analysis is about right for this kind of integration project in the private sector, but the average lifespan for a similar public sector project would be significantly longer. This would chug along in the DSP for years before it got an overhaul paid for by public money, and any costs incurred in managing it would be dwarfed by the savings made annually.

From an IT and services investment standpoint, it's a no brainer. You could realistically expect a system like this to be generating significant net returns for the taxpayer for at least 5 years after it reaches break-even. At least.

As has been posted already, the issue of the feasibility/complexity of the technology is a red herring here. All that's required is the political will to act.

Farmer Pudsey · 15-08-2012 6:29pm

decmanning wrote: »

"A young couple PAYE on 110K/year large mortage"
then dont take out a large mortgage, when i bought a house the banks were offering me massive mortgages but i knew if i ever got a cut in my wages then i would not be able to afford it so i chose a house with a price similar to my means, you cant expect the government to fork out for you just becasue you chose to buy a big house with a big price tag

I ment earning 110k per year and havein a large mortgage sorry about typo, and a lot of couples did not buy a large house the reality is that this couple will have creche fees and a montly mortgage repayment. I see where some posters are advocating a tax credit for childcare. All that will happen is that creche's will increase there fees in line with the tax relief. This happened when the house grants were first bought in and every thime they were raised. It also happened when Charlie McCreevy gave the 1000 euro allowance for toddlers. At present the economy is under pressure to keep couples like this in the labour force means testing/taxing CB will only increase the temptation to leave the workforce. The reality is that in the next Budget the government will again take 10-15 euro off CB. It is amazing we give free GP care, free travel, Free Tv licience etc to some very wealty pensioners, but middle income families have to pay for GP care, meadical, Education and un subsdised childcare for there childern and the reality is any money taken off CB will not be used to help fund any of these.

On another note CB also keeps the birthrate up this may hopefully keep the demigraphics that are begining to haunt some developed countries like Italy where the number of pensioners are begining to neary exceed the workforce,. These are the future taxpayers that mat pay your's ansd my Old Age pension.

Welease · 15-08-2012 8:27pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I think this is missing the main point. The technicalities involved are not relevant to the overall discussion. I know enough about public sector data integration services to know that this is a complicated but feasible initiative that would take time, but would be doable. There are divisions of major multinationals in Ireland at the moment for whom this is bread and butter stuff. It's certainly not the lengthy impossibility that the minister is making it out to be, or more to the point, a justification for doing nothing and minimizing political risk while scores of millions of euros of taxpayer's money are wasted.

In my opinion, the minister is being duplicitous here. On one hand she is ostensibly supporting the change, so as not to bee seen as opposing it and standing in the way of progress, however she and her party colleagues are implicitly aware of the political minefield it could bring about, with dangers for their political popularity from many different camps, and so is hiding behind a vague statement like "such a system could take years to implement" in order to delay any proactive decision and perpetuate the wasteful, but politically relatively safe status quo.

To my mind it's more of the same cowardly, gutless politics which panders to various vested interests with large votes instead of having the courage to take a really progressive step. It's this kind of cowardly, self-serving politics which has our country so corrupt it's almost beyond saving.

I think you have misread the context of my post. My post was a response to LeinsterDub's solution based on running a simple sql-type query.. I was merely pointing out that that such a simple solution didn't actually provide the required data due to the method of CB payment registration/payment and our methods of revenue collection..
To the wider point, its is obviously doable but statements such as it can be done in X are largely guestimates based on generally 0 knowledge of the process/data structures/data etc within the systems and therefore are essentially worthless.. If someone knows nothing about the internals of a system, then over 30 years of IT experience has taught me their estimates are probably wrong

I'm not going to get into where the fault lies, all the usual suspects will be involved (and I'm in general agreement with you there)

Measures in the works for wealthy to "hand back" their children's allowance.

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