Croke Park II preliminary Talks started today

That ISME lady is dead right. Reality check needed!

Rightwing wrote: »

They probably lost their jobs already

Really,
The bulk of the private sector lost their jobs already.
Have you anything to back this up?

road_high wrote: »

Tell that to the hundreds of 1000s who lost their jobs and incomes completely over the past 4/5 years.

The reality is simple.
The BULK of the private sector DID NOT lose their jobs and incomes completely over the past 4/5 years (thankfully).
Those that did initially were almost always tied directly into construction and those since as spin off's as a result of people spending less in the economy.

road_high wrote: »

Can we keep borrowing €1.2 billion a month? No answer, obviously.

No indeed we can't.
We need to reduce that figure. However if you look closely at the figures only one area in government spending has increased significently in the past 4/5 years and strangely enough it isn't the cost of running the public sector.
While I am sure more cuts will come to the wages conditions in the public sector, to suggest that the whole of that 1.2 billion a month in savings will come from the public sector is simply absurd.
CP2, is an instrument that will get probably one months borrowing removed from the list. Finding the other 6 or seven months will be the really tough part.

ardmacha wrote: »

These people are not the "bulk" of employees. They lost their jobs as there was no demand for their services. There appears to a large demand for public services from people who want those providing these services to have pay cuts at a time when they themselves are not experiencing paycuts.

They are/were a huge chunk of the worforce and taxbase. Hence the almost 15% unemployment rate Their taxes funded public services and now with that income, PS must adjust to the new reality.
So we should keep borrowing these enormous sums indefinitely and to hell with the consequences?

ardmacha wrote: »

The bulk of private sector employees are not experiencing pay cuts and many of these have never had a pay cut.

Come out of the clouds, are you serious, you can't be... look at the unemployed, look at those who have emigrated...

As for pay cuts, there is a fairly large percentage of private sector industries that have been turned on its head, people have to do jobs they never envisioned they would have to do, many work much longer hours for less pay, many do not get to take their allotted holidays, most do not know what will happen to their jobs/paychecks

There are some in the private sector who have remained untouched, I know quite a few, I know a lot more who's lives have been radically changed for the worse..

The biggest problem for me is that clearly, when all sectors of the economy are assessed as to who got damaged more, it is the private sector that got truly bashed.

tayto lover wrote: »

Show me the Public Sector anywhere else that is paying for itself. Still waiting.

What? There isn't, obviously. BUT there are many economies that match their spending to their tax revenue. It's not really that hard a concept to grasp.

not yet wrote: »

And all for PS wages right..............

The money we are borrowing is going to run the state and everything under that heading, now some people would have you believe that the PS wage bill is bleeding the country dry when in fact it is less then 25% of the overall bill.

25% of a €12 billion over run is still massive.

Rightwing,how are you getting on with your proposals to cut €1Bn from the County Councils ?

not yet wrote: »

And all for PS wages right..............

The money we are borrowing is going to run the state and everything under that heading, now some people would have you believe that the PS wage bill is bleeding the country dry when in fact it is less then 25% of the overall bill.

No but of the 25bn+ of adjustments so far, only a tiny amount have come from the PS pay bill.

road_high wrote: »

Tell that to the hundreds of 1000s who lost their jobs and incomes completely over the past 4/5 years.

I have commented on this view before in that I find it difficult to fully understand why persons losing their jobs in a particular sector should cause the wages of people in another sector to be cut. Those unfortunately being made unemployed in going concerns companies might equally say to their colleagues still in jobs if you took a pay cut the employer might be able to retain more jobs.

The reality is that the majority of redundancies over the last 4 or 5 years came from the construction sector as demand has plumetted and there simply is not enough construction work about. Certain parts of retail are also badly affected, e.g. HMV, because their business model can't survive in a changed environment where on-line Irish consumers have decided to abandon traditional retail and buy on-line or in building related retail such as DIY superstores where again demand has plumetted. In fact one of the main reasons quoted by retail companies for closure is that they couldn't afford the exhorbinant rents anymore whereby rents make up an unsustainable proportion of their sales revenue. It is vital that this anomaly is resolved. There is no justification for landlords increasing rents when retail volume/profitability is reducing.