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Do we pay too much tax for crappy services?

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Comments

  • #242
    markodaly
    Registered Users Posts: 13,940 ✭✭✭✭markodaly


    McGiver wrote: »

    It doesn't have to be necessarily Scandinavian services, just decent public services as in most of Europe (typically Northern, Western and Central). There is a long way to get there but you have to start somewhere. I don't thinks anybody is talking about making a huge sudden increase in tax rates, that's not on the agenda. It's clear that there are reserves in the current system and wastefulness, inefficiencies and eGovernance need to be looked at first, before any increase in spending and/or taxation. The point is to trying to fix what's broken and fix all leaks first, and there's many of them, I believe. There's little point pouring more water to a leaking barrel, right.

    I couldn't agree more, but you know what my next question would be. How do we actually fix those leaks, and how do we get Unions on board to change their outdated work practices and if needed get rid of the deadwood?
    Do you think the SD and the electorate at large would go for such a radical program of public sector reform?
    Other than that my personal opinion is that Swedish property tax system is well designed and I wouldn't have issue with moving policy towards a similar direction provided the revenue is used by local authorities locally. System where local property taxes are raised locally but transfered out to the centre is wrong and unacceptable.

    I can agree there too, property taxes and rates should be collected or held by the LA's. I am a firm believer in strong local government, who are accountable to the people on the ground level of the state.
    Going towards the Swedish taxation system will mean the lower income earners will be punished the most. I can't ever see any party advocating this.

    Unbalanced yes (especially with regards to the corporations vs SMEs), odd yes, but talking about 50% tax as "the guts" is simply not true. As I said average earner at 45k pa pays 26% total tax including social security payments (I count that as a tax). Even single earner at 65k pa doesn't pay 50%, but only 32%. Single earner at double the average salary 90k pa pays 37% total tax.

    Yes, there is a different between the headline rate and the net tax, but that just shows how punitive the rate is for middle-income earners and how 45% of the working population pay no tax.
    Where did you get the 50% figure from?

    Income tax, 40%
    USC 5%
    PRSI 4%

    For every euro earned for a single person over €34,500 a year
    Also, just for correctness, your low full time minimum wage person pays 9% 'tax' as defined by me above (including usc and prsi).

    If your income is less that €13,000 you do not may USC
    If you earn under €352 a week (€18,304 a year) you are PRSI exempt

    A person on the min wage, say working a 40 hour week, will earn
    €20,384 a year

    They Pay
    €777 income tax
    €538 PRSI
    €240 USC

    Total deductions €1,555
    A little over 7% of total income

    Compare to Finland, you will be taxed on the same wage a total of €4,368.
    That is 21.4% of total income, a 3 fold increase in tax paid in Finland than Ireland.

    For someone on €10,000

    In Finland they pay 9.8% of their income in tax (€976)
    In Ireland they pay 0% of their income in tax (€0)


    For someone on €50,000

    In Finland they pay 36.1% of their income in tax (€18,026)
    In Ireland they pay 26.4% of their income in tax (€13,213)

    For someone on €100,000

    In Finland they pay 43.8% of their income in tax (€43,884)
    In Ireland they pay 38.5% of their income in tax (€38,511)

    For someone on €200,000

    In Finland they pay 49.2% of their income in tax (€98,312)
    In Ireland they pay 45.2% of their income in tax (€90,511)


    The discrepancy is the largest for those at the lowest income earners. Comparatively, the middle and especially the higher income earners will pay income tax that is very comparable to those Northern and Western European neighbours, but our lower-income earners are the clear outliers here.

    Even if they paid more, hypothetically, I think most people would welcome better public services and would be willing to contribute to their realisation.

    They might if they got value for money, but Irish public services are not run at the behest of the public, but for the employees.
    Other than that, what "Irish solution" would you suggest? Because so far, despite all the success of transforming a mostly agrarian country into a modern one in let's say 3 decades, the Irish solution has been facilitation of global tax avoidance, corruption of grand scale, crashing the economy at least once, crashing the property market, escalation of the housing crisis, property market destabilisation and inability to provide at least average European level of healthcare service. So I generally beg to differ, I think no magic Irish solution exists, because otherwise it would have been already in place.

    I never said an 'Irish' solution exists. That is exactly what we do not need.
    The first step is with the electorate and we the Irish people. If we really want to improve the state of the public sector and the provisioning of social services, we must be able to take hard decisions when needed to.

    Even a simple thing like BusConnects gets dragged down into the gutter of local politics, NIMBYism and every blowhard available thinking they know better than the experts appointed to look at the problem.
    If we cannot even sort out a bus lane from one end of the city to another, how in gods name can we expect to run a multi Billion euro health service to a modern.

    This is where political leadership comes into it, as the political class caves into this type of thinking again and again.
    Furthermore, I don't think anyone advocates copying all policies exactly from Sweden, Denmark or Norway or whatever country, adjustments will always be needed, but it's a good idea to look at functional models and take it from there rather than trying to cook up something from scratch especially if Irish solutions don't seem to work, apart from inventing largest global tax avoidance system in the world.

    The last part is a bit disingenuous to be fair and is skirting the issue. It is also a populist line to take.

    I agree however that Ireland can learn from other countries. This is one of the reason why I like the Greens to some respect. I dont like a lot of their politics to be fair, BUT when it comes to things like transport in the city, they are usually right and will (most of the time) be prepared to stand up to the blowhards and argue the case for a good plan. The SD's could learn from them in this regards.

    As for SD manifesto, if you read it, you would find that it suggests 'not eroding the tax base', 'maintaining current tax base with some minor adjustments'. Because as you know FF/FG are/will be pushing tax reduction, which is bad news for public services and bad idea when your government debt to real GDP ratio is 110% (as high as Italy's), if you count debt per capita then it's the highest in the EU. Tax cuts may lead to a higher government debt, and if it gets out of control it would be extremely dangerous, this time 'banking socialism' style bail out wouldn't be possible.

    Ireland's debt to GDP is under 65%
    https://www.rte.ie/news/business/2019/0423/1045108-eu-debt-gdp/

    OK, we know that the GDP figures from Ireland need to be taken with a grain of salt, but where are your 'real' figures coming from.
    I would agree in part with the tax cuts not happening. The country needs massive infrastructure investment and this has to be paid for. But we should also be looking at value for money in the PS as well and to be fair we have gotten little reform in many departments or sectors over the past 10 years.
    The SD manifesto focuses much more on closing the gaps, fixing the leaks (inefficiencies, corruption, transparency) as I said, that's where lot of resources are lost. Also, it clearly mentions government's fiscal discipline. This sort of a manifesto would be called Blairite in the UK and wouldn't be really considered seriously leftist in Europe, by the way.

    That is welcome, but as I said, would the SD be prepared to take a knife to say, CIE and tender out routes via the NTA and be prepared for the eventual blowback.


  • #243
    markodaly
    Registered Users Posts: 13,940 ✭✭✭✭markodaly


    voluntary wrote: »
    Here's an example for Hamburg:

    property value: 200,000 euros
    tax rate: 3.5 ‰
    Property tax base value: 700 EUR
    Lifting Rate: 540%
    Annual property tax: 3,780 euros

    they do some complex calculations in Germany but the LPT isn't cheap.

    https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grundsteuer_(Deutschland)

    And for anyone who has lived or been in Germany the amenities and level of services available to the people there are heads above anything we offer here.


  • #244
    voluntary
    Registered Users Posts: 871 ✭✭✭voluntary


    markodaly wrote: »
    And for anyone who has lived or been in Germany the amenities and level of services available to the people there are heads above anything we offer here.

    Yes and living is also significantly cheaper.


  • #245
    Chips Lovell
    Moderators, Politics Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,266 Mod ✭✭✭✭Chips Lovell


    The Bishop Basher wrote: »
    That’s probably because we do and we are.

    Well no actually. We pay relatively little.


  • #246
    kippy
    Registered Users Posts: 18,393 ✭✭✭✭kippy


    markodaly wrote: »
    And for anyone who has lived or been in Germany the amenities and level of services available to the people there are heads above anything we offer here.

    They pay a lot more taxes though - don't they?


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  • #247
    markodaly
    Registered Users Posts: 13,940 ✭✭✭✭markodaly


    kippy wrote: »
    They pay a lot more taxes though - don't they?

    It depends on who 'they' are.

    The lower-income earners, most definitely.

    The higher-income earners, possibly a bit more.


  • #248
    kippy
    Registered Users Posts: 18,393 ✭✭✭✭kippy


    markodaly wrote: »
    It depends on who 'they' are.

    The lower-income earners, most definitely.

    The higher-income earners, possibly a bit more.

    Surely there are also economies of scale at work there too.
    Aren't there far more "low income" earners and far more "high income" earners there also?


  • #249
    voluntary
    Registered Users Posts: 871 ✭✭✭voluntary


    kippy wrote: »
    They pay a lot more taxes though - don't they?

    A lot of things are way cheaper in Germany like motor tax, car insurance is cheap, childcare is almost free, housing for most people is cheap, food is cheaper, alcohol is cheaper, cigarettes. Name anything and there's a very high chance it's cheaper in Germany.

    Plus an average German person would have plenty of savings. An average Irish person has plenty of debt.


  • #250
    markodaly
    Registered Users Posts: 13,940 ✭✭✭✭markodaly


    kippy wrote: »
    Surely there are also economies of scale at work there too.
    Aren't there far more "low income" earners and far more "high income" earners there also?

    How do you come to that assertion?


  • #251
    Franz Von Peppercorn II
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,398 ✭✭✭Franz Von Peppercorn II


    Chips Lovell wrote: »
    Well no actually. We pay relatively little.

    It’s totally disengenuous to add employer contributions there.


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  • #252
    Chips Lovell
    Moderators, Politics Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 24,266 Mod ✭✭✭✭Chips Lovell


    Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »
    It’s totally disengenuous to add employer contributions there.

    It's all coming from the same source. You could levy the whole lot from employees and its still ultimately coming from the employer, i.e. the cost of their labour is still the same. And it's all going into the same pot.


  • #253
    McGiver
    Registered Users Posts: 4,366 ✭✭✭McGiver


    Podge_irl wrote:
    I don't think Ireland's services are particularly crap either. They are certainly not top notch but for the most part I would consider them reasonably middling. It is worth looking at examples such as the metro and bus projects ongoing at the moment to see how much people will demand better services and yet reject all efforts to bring them in in the face of the slightest inconvenience though.
    How many European countries did you live and have experience with?

    Irish public services are extremely slim and generally low quality, public transport in particular but not only that.


  • #254
    kippy
    Registered Users Posts: 18,393 ✭✭✭✭kippy


    markodaly wrote: »
    How do you come to that assertion?

    Population of Ireland <<<<<< Population of Germany


  • #255
    McGiver
    Registered Users Posts: 4,366 ✭✭✭McGiver


    Geuze wrote:
    France and Germany.
    I don't know the French system, can ask mates, but I know the German one.

    Germany has a mandated state health insurance for starters, secondly it's a universal healthcare unlike the US one, thirdly 80% is public/government funded (again unlike the US), thirdly 90% people use public mandated insurance and only 10% private insurance. And it's not a free competition of private healthcare providers as you may have suggested, it's overwhelmingly government driven. I'd be OK with this system, if course. The only thing that is "free" about it is that one is free to go for private insurance if they so wish and generally the consumer can visit any doctor/facility they want.


  • #256
    McGiver
    Registered Users Posts: 4,366 ✭✭✭McGiver


    Deleted User wrote:
    Our services are shockingly poor, for that tax take, however. Any increase in tax take is used to buy votes by increasing pay as opposed to investing long term. Public service workers should NEVER be paid the same as their private sector equivalents. They get pension, leave, security that the private sector will never get. Instead we have governments benchmarking and often paying more than the equivalent.

    Agree. I think Ireland is the only odd country in the EU where public sector pays are higher than the private ones. Maybe Greece was in a similar situation... Before it bankrupted.


  • #257
    McGiver
    Registered Users Posts: 4,366 ✭✭✭McGiver


    Geuze wrote:
    You can't really blame workers for focussing on the 50% MTR after 35k approx.

    It's a red herring. It's irrelevant and incorrect. The effective taxation is one of the lowest in Europe.


  • #258
    Podge_irl
    Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 25,254 Mod ✭✭✭✭Podge_irl


    McGiver wrote: »
    How many European countries did you live and have experience with?

    Irish public services are extremely slim and generally low quality, public transport in particular but not only that.

    4.

    I'm not sure what makes Irish public services "extremely slim" in comparison to our near neighbours - what fundamental public services are we missing?


  • #259
    Geuze
    Registered Users Posts: 13,064 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    McGiver wrote: »
    I don't know the French system, can ask mates, but I know the German one.

    Germany has a mandated state health insurance for starters, secondly it's a universal healthcare unlike the US one, thirdly 80% is public/government funded (again unlike the US), thirdly 90% people use public mandated insurance and only 10% private insurance. And it's not a free competition of private healthcare providers as you may have suggested, it's overwhelmingly government driven. I'd be OK with this system, if course. The only thing that is "free" about it is that one is free to go for private insurance if they so wish and generally the consumer can visit any doctor/facility they want.

    AFAIK, in Germany there are various healthcare providers, e.g.

    public hosps
    not for profit hosps
    for profit hosps

    but that they all accept your insurance.

    There are 200+ insurers, known as sickness funds, but the premia are fixed by the State.

    AFAIK, the GP and consultants are not employed by the State?


  • #260
    Geuze
    Registered Users Posts: 13,064 ✭✭✭✭Geuze


    McGiver wrote: »
    It's a red herring. It's irrelevant and incorrect. The effective taxation is one of the lowest in Europe.

    Well, while we all know and agree that effective income tax rates are nowhere near 50%, many earners do focus on the 50% MTR on extra income over 35k.


  • #261
    McGiver
    Registered Users Posts: 4,366 ✭✭✭McGiver


    Geuze wrote:
    Well, while we all know and agree that effective income tax rates are nowhere near 50%, many earners do focus on the 50% MTR on extra income over 35k.
    Total tax rate is what counts. And it's one of the lowest in the EU. It's simply low.
    However, I agree there could probably be more bands, two bands with such a steep cut off seem harsh but that's the issue here - it's just the optics... Are optics really that important? I think they aren't.


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  • #262
    McGiver
    Registered Users Posts: 4,366 ✭✭✭McGiver


    Podge_irl wrote:
    I'm not sure what makes Irish public services "extremely slim" in comparison to our near neighbours - what fundamental public services are we missing?

    It's not about missing that much rather than quality, extent and coverage.

    Public transport - totally behind most of the EU. In Dublin, the capital, that's just awful, 2 tram lines (very recent), no tube, dart saves it somewhat, but overall poor - ask any foreigner living in Dublin. Compare with other EU capitals of a similar size. Outside of Dublin, much worse. The same goes for cycling infrastructure - poor. And railways too.

    Healthcare - everyone knows this, just terrible. Literally all my foreign mates do their medical stuff to continental Europe, apart from Romanians and to some extent Poles (that's understandable check their EHCI scores). Reason - local healthcare is expensive (the bang for the buck), unreliable to get a really good quality and can be slow even with a private insurance. Many cases of fake doctors. The whole idea of putting patients on trolleys in hospitals is inhumane and just doesn't happen in most of the healthcare systems in the EU (where Ireland should belong) - the scale of the issue here is totally shocking.

    Education - 92% of primary schooling outsourced to the Church - unthinkable in many EU countries (where I'm from this was mostly abolished in 1773 when the Jesuits lost the monopoly for providing education). I'm OK with religious organisations running private schools and people being free to choose them if they wish so, but the bulk education should be provided by the state (LAs) and/or private non-religious organisations. Similar goes for secondary schooling - the state allowing the Church run the show instead of taking the responsibility.

    Emergency services including Gardai - slow to turn up and act

    Law enforcement - quite toothless overall (cops don't have firearms), traffic rules enforcement weak

    Water supply - water unsafe in many areas, unthinkable in a developed European country

    Broadband? :)

    Then the amount LAs provide overall (libraries, support services etc) is very limited, largely due to limited budgets (were cut by 22% during the recession an never restored), but there are other factors too.

    Etc.

    Is that sufficient?

    The key point is that you need the experience with living abroad to be able to assess this issue in depth. For person who has been living in Ireland for decades and has no comparison the situation isn't that bad and has been actually steadily improving, albeit from a very low base. It's when you look at international, EU comparison where the issues start to become apparent and you notice the deficit vs the EU peers.


  • #263
    voluntary
    Registered Users Posts: 871 ✭✭✭voluntary


    McGiver wrote: »
    Total tax rate is what counts. And it's one of the lowest in the EU. It's simply low.

    Total tax rate for an 'average joe'? This may mean something for the budget planning, but not for employees/residents who are charged top rates of income tax and will relocate at first occassion or will never even settle down here and many high profile jobs go somewhere else.


  • #264
    McGiver
    Registered Users Posts: 4,366 ✭✭✭McGiver


    voluntary wrote:
    Total tax rate for an 'average joe'? This may mean something for the budget planning, but not for employees/residents who are charged top rates of income tax and will relocate at first occassion or will never even settle down here and many high profile jobs go somewhere else.

    Give me an example please. I can give you a similar one from the Germany, France, Austria, Finland, Sweden. You'll be surprised how little tax you pay.

    What I admit is quite high VAT but the impact of it isn't that high, it hits low income people more actually and then Capital Gains tax that's a joke. But income taxes and social contributions are low compared to the EU peers.


  • #265
    voluntary
    Registered Users Posts: 871 ✭✭✭voluntary


    McGiver wrote: »
    Give me an example please. I can give you a similar one from the Germany, France, Austria, Finland, Sweden. You'll be surprised how little tax you pay.

    What I admit is quite high VAT but the impact of it isn't that high, it hits low income people more actually and then Capital Gains tax that's a joke. But income taxes and social contributions are low compared to the EU peers.

    Not sure how accurate is this, but according to this table, Ireland is the 9th dearest country in terms of income tax in Europe
    https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/personal-income-tax-rate?continent=europe

    Also, many (if not all) executive level individuals in publicly traded companies get most of their compensation in stock, so what they would look for is Capital Gains tax and Dividend tax. Both very high in Ireland.

    Social contribution (PRSI) may not be very high, but again, what do you get for it? A 200 euros per week pension (comparing to 80-100% of the last salary in many other places), the most expensive childcare in the whole Europe and a stay-away-from public healthcare system?


  • #266
    McGiver
    Registered Users Posts: 4,366 ✭✭✭McGiver


    voluntary wrote:
    Not sure how accurate is this, but according to this table, Ireland is the 9th dearest country in terms of income tax in Europe
    It's not accurate at all. It's just income tax and and not the total tax burden. Also, not sure where they got 48% from that's neither effective nor marginal tax rate.
    voluntary wrote:
    Also, many (if not all) executive level individuals in publicly traded companies get most of their compensation in stock, so what they would look for is Capital Gains tax and Dividend tax. Both very high in Ireland.
    Well, we're talking about population as the whole or average Joe to reflect most population, so special cases like these are irrelevant if you want to discuss tax policy.

    And I agree CGT is too high, no disagreement on that at all.
    voluntary wrote:
    Social contribution (PRSI) may not be very high, but again, what do you get for it? A 200 euros per week pension (comparing to 80-100% of the last salary in many other places), the most expensive childcare in the whole Europe and a stay-away-from public healthcare system?

    Again, no disagreement - that's the bang for the buck argument I used. It's poor even for the relatively less money. But the PRSI is low so.

    Now, childcare is private with no state or LA provision, but it's changing somewhat with more subsidies and regulations etc. So hard to blame this on government - it's a private business, the only thing we can say is that the government failed to take responsibility and tightly control it. Compare with Germany where it is tightly regulated and either provided by the LAs or private but under LA control, highly regulated and subsidised - kindergarten in Berlin costs approx 300/month!

    Sorry, but I have to repeat myself again to dispel the myth - total tax burden in Ireland for an average Joe (which covers most of the population) is one of the lowest in the EU.

    Page 10:
    https://www.institutmolinari.org/IMG/pdf/taz-burden-eu-2018.pd

    Now, in the report above, they calculate total tax burden based on Real Gross Average income, which includes taxes paid by the employers, so I have made a table to illustrate the taxes paid by employee only. No difference, Ireland is one of the lowest in the EU.

    Notice how relatively low taxes paid by employee are in Sweden, whereas total tax approaches 50%, the rest is paid by the employer. Also 60% of tax paid by the employee is municipal (LA) and county tax, only 40% goes to the central government, which is a brilliant system how to keep money on the local level for public services etc. Also LAs set their income tax rates independently so there is a slight variation, this is somewhat similar to Switzerland.


  • #267
    micosoft
    Registered Users Posts: 2,359 ✭✭✭micosoft


    McGiver wrote: »
    It's not about missing that much rather than quality, extent and coverage.

    Go on then. Great thing is that nearly every facet of government services are ranked by independent agencies these days. Will be good to see what is wrong.
    McGiver wrote: »
    Public transport - totally behind most of the EU. In Dublin, the capital, that's just awful, 2 tram lines (very recent), no tube, dart saves it somewhat, but overall poor - ask any foreigner living in Dublin. Compare with other EU capitals of a similar size. Outside of Dublin, much worse. The same goes for cycling infrastructure - poor. And railways too.
    Compared to what equivalent sized and density European City? Subways work in high density cities. We simply don't have the density to justify. As a cyclist Dublin is a great city now - and I remember the bad days for cyclists. Evidence is the numbers cycling these days. Can it be improved? Sure but it's a medieval layout city so will take time to alter.
    McGiver wrote: »
    Healthcare - everyone knows this, just terrible. Literally all my foreign mates do their medical stuff to continental Europe, apart from Romanians and to some extent Poles (that's understandable check their EHCI scores). Reason - local healthcare is expensive (the bang for the buck), unreliable to get a really good quality and can be slow even with a private insurance. Many cases of fake doctors. The whole idea of putting patients on trolleys in hospitals is inhumane and just doesn't happen in most of the healthcare systems in the EU (where Ireland should belong) - the scale of the issue here is totally shocking.

    Everybody? Do they? We are number 19 of healthcare and outcomes. Ahead of Denmark. 15th highest life expectancy despite our relationship with alcohol. In pretty much every metric we are doing well. Saying that it's cheaper to do X in Hungary or Poland is hardly convincing. And health news does not travel - during peak periods trolleys are used in every other country in Europe.
    McGiver wrote: »
    Education - 92% of primary schooling outsourced to the Church - unthinkable in many EU countries (where I'm from this was mostly abolished in 1773 when the Jesuits lost the monopoly for providing education). I'm OK with religious organisations running private schools and people being free to choose them if they wish so, but the bulk education should be provided by the state (LAs) and/or private non-religious organisations. Similar goes for secondary schooling - the state allowing the Church run the show instead of taking the responsibility.
    Apart from the historical artefact that most schools are owned by the religious (which is being address - this isn't the 17th century when the state can just take things) what is so terribly wrong? Other than that we have consistently been in the top ten countries globally for education.
    McGiver wrote: »
    Emergency services including Gardai - slow to turn up and act

    Law enforcement - quite toothless overall (cops don't have firearms), traffic rules enforcement weak
    12th safest country in the World? We don't want or need armed police. 4th safest country in Europe for road safety.
    McGiver wrote: »
    Water supply - water unsafe in many areas, unthinkable in a developed European country
    We have easily one of the safest potable water systems in the world. https://www.water.ie/water-supply/supply-and-service-update/
    There are supply issues because the Irish people declined to pay for it which will eventually be fixed in a few years.
    McGiver wrote: »
    Broadband? :)
    A function of our population density.
    McGiver wrote: »
    Then the amount LAs provide overall (libraries, support services etc) is very limited, largely due to limited budgets (were cut by 22% during the recession an never restored), but there are other factors too.
    Not sure if you have a specific example? I would agree there are challenges as we raise standard of social care in certain areas but not massively at variance of our peers.

    Etc.
    McGiver wrote: »
    Is that sufficient?

    Not really. Before suggesting people "live abroad" you might actually appraise yourself of the facts. You have not called out a single service where Ireland is so short of our peer group that you could argue the service is substandard. I've actually lived abroad (I suspect in a broader spread of countries) and your experience is alien to me. Perhaps relying more on statistics rather than anecdotes? The chicken licken school of political commentary rarely gets results.
    McGiver wrote: »
    The key point is that you need the experience with living abroad to be able to assess this issue in depth. For person who has been living in Ireland for decades and has no comparison the situation isn't that bad and has been actually steadily improving, albeit from a very low base. It's when you look at international, EU comparison where the issues start to become apparent and you notice the deficit vs the EU peers.
    The level and quality of services in Ireland ranks comfortably with our peers of the most wealthy countries in the World. Other explanations such as population density, historical decisions and cultural reasons explain the +- in our ranking. Grossly exaggerating "how bad it is" is actually unhelpful in improving a particular service as your opinion can easily be dismissed as the usual suspects of "x is the worst in the world" when clearly it is not.


  • #268
    McGiver
    Registered Users Posts: 4,366 ✭✭✭McGiver


    micosoft wrote: »
    The level and quality of services in Ireland ranks comfortably with our peers of the most wealthy countries in the World.
    Furst, I wasn't sure sure if it was a joke or not - do you really believe this? Do you have any evidence for this? I just don't agree with this on fundamental level, having lived in several countries, Ireland is the most "low cost" and "small state" in terms of public services of all of them. You're basically suggesting that the services in Ireland is in the same league as in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland etc these are the countries you are talking about, and this just is imply not true.

    You must be just looking at Dublin ignoring the hinterlands. But as I said even Dublin is poor compared to similar EU cities, in few aspects. Public transport is one of them.

    And you are totally wrong on healthcare and trollies. Trollies don't happen in most Europe. Just doesn't happen. There's no way you can justify this as normal - it's absolutely not.

    The WHO ranking you have given has nothing to do with outcomes, it's using synthetic indicators which don't affect you as the consumer, and it's measuring "health system performance", totally irrelevant for the end user. Also the paper itself says that it's using new indicators to asses "health system performance" instead of traditional ones such as life expectancy etc. Clearly not suited for our discussion.

    Look at EHCI rankings which is using indicators directly affecting you as the consumer - Patient Rights and Information, Access to Care, Treatment Outcomes, Range and Reach of Services, Prevention and use of Pharmaceuticals. As expected, Ireland does quite poorly in EHCI.
    https://healthpowerhouse.com/publications/


  • #269
    micosoft
    Registered Users Posts: 2,359 ✭✭✭micosoft


    McGiver wrote: »
    Furst, I wasn't sure sure if it was a joke or not - do you really believe this? Do you have any evidence for this? I just don't agree with this on fundamental level, having lived in several countries, Ireland is the most "low cost" and "small state" in terms of public services of all of them. You're basically suggesting that the services in Ireland is in the same league as in Germany, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland etc these are the countries you are talking about, and this just is imply not true.

    You must be just looking at Dublin ignoring the hinterlands. But as I said even Dublin is poor compared to similar EU cities, in few aspects. Public transport is one of them.

    And you are totally wrong on healthcare and trollies. Trollies don't happen in most Europe. Just doesn't happen. There's no way you can justify this as normal - it's absolutely not.

    The WHO ranking you have given has nothing to do with outcomes, it's using synthetic indicators which don't affect you as the consumer, and it's measuring "health system performance", totally irrelevant for the end user. Also the paper itself says that it's using new indicators to asses "health system performance" instead of traditional ones such as life expectancy etc. Clearly not suited for our discussion.

    Look at EHCI rankings which is using indicators directly affecting you as the consumer - Patient Rights and Information, Access to Care, Treatment Outcomes, Range and Reach of Services, Prevention and use of Pharmaceuticals. As expected, Ireland does quite poorly in EHCI.
    https://healthpowerhouse.com/publications/

    Unlike you I provided links for every assertion I made. In other words I'm not saying - I'm stating that the evidence suggests that Ireland is similar to other EU nations and typically in the upper half if not quartile for state services. If you are saying that our public transport is not up to London's standard and our skiing is not up to Austrias, well, that's not a reasonable comparison. You've only just put forward a single fact in your diatribe of Irish services (which is around A&E services). But here too news does not travel borders. The UK has trolley issues.

    I understand that what matters to you is "belief" but as I indicated it would be better to look at services - rate them based on evidence, and suggest solutions based on that taking into account the unique circumstances of Ireland (Island with low density population).

    You made an assertion - that Public services in Ireland are extremely slim and comments like "totally behind most of the EU" or "terrible". For the most part it's actually inline or better than our peers in the EU which are the richest countries in the world and the most invested in public services. Being consistently in the top twenty of the world is ok by me.


  • #270
    McGiver
    Registered Users Posts: 4,366 ✭✭✭McGiver


    micosoft wrote: »
    Unlike you I provided links for every assertion I made. In other words I'm not saying - I'm stating that the evidence suggests that Ireland is similar to other EU nations and typically in the upper half if not quartile for state services. If you are saying that our public transport is not up to London's standard and our skiing is not up to Austrias, well, that's not a reasonable comparison. You've only just put forward a single fact in your diatribe of Irish services (which is around A&E services). But here too news does not travel borders. The UK has trolley issues.

    I understand that what matters to you is "belief" but as I indicated it would be better to look at services - rate them based on evidence, and suggest solutions based on that taking into account the unique circumstances of Ireland (Island with low density population).

    You made an assertion - that Public services in Ireland are extremely slim and comments like "totally behind most of the EU" or "terrible". For the most part it's actually inline or better than our peers in the EU which are the richest countries in the world and the most invested in public services. Being consistently in the top twenty of the world is ok by me.

    OK. So do you have a response on EHCI? Because the report you provided is a purely academic exercise with no value in this discussion. EHCI is a fairly authoriative and widely accepted report, and most importantly clearly measures indicators important for us, the public, the consumers.

    I sort of expected you would mention UK with regards to trolleys, but I naturally exclude UK as I'm coming from a continental perspective and I don't think UK should be the country to evaluate Ireland against (even though I have a personal experience with the UK and do take it into account in comparison). NHS isn't the best public healthcare system in the world as the British believe. It has several areas of speacilisation where it excels due to the sheer amount of resources (including academia), but taken as a whole and overall it's a poor system and lags behind almost all Northern, Western and even Central European systems. I can point you to EHCI here as well where UK isn't doing that well as the Brits would like everyone to believe i.e. it's not even top 10 what to speak of number 1.

    And I insist that trolleys aren't normal thing top half of the European healthcare systems and that the occurence of this issye in Ireland is certainly not an indicator of a successful "upper quartile" healthcare system. How can you maintain that HSE is first class public service is beyond me. I'd say that vast majority of lay people and experts agree on HSE being sub-standard in the "top league" at least, let's narrow it down to Western/Northern Europe.

    And also, care to comment on whether your POV is a Dublin-centric or not? Are you assessing Ireland based on Dublin? That wouldn't be exactly accurate.


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  • #271
    micosoft
    Registered Users Posts: 2,359 ✭✭✭micosoft


    McGiver wrote: »
    OK. So do you have a response on EHCI? Because the report you provided is a purely academic exercise with no value in this discussion. EHCI is a fairly authoriative and widely accepted report, and most importantly clearly measures indicators important for us, the public, the consumers.

    I sort of expected you would mention UK with regards to trolleys, but I naturally exclude UK as I'm coming from a continental perspective and I don't think UK should be the country to evaluate Ireland against (even though I have a personal experience with the UK and do take it into account in comparison). NHS isn't the best public healthcare system in the world as the British believe. It has several areas of speacilisation where it excels due to the sheer amount of resources (including academia), but taken as a whole and overall it's a poor system and lags behind almost all Northern, Western and even Central European systems. I can point you to EHCI here as well where UK isn't doing that well as the Brits would like everyone to believe i.e. it's not even top 10 what to speak of number 1.

    And I insist that trolleys aren't normal thing top half of the European healthcare systems and that the occurence of this issye in Ireland is certainly not an indicator of a successful "upper quartile" healthcare system. How can you maintain that HSE is first class public service is beyond me. I'd say that vast majority of lay people and experts agree on HSE being sub-standard in the "top league" at least, let's narrow it down to Western/Northern Europe.

    And also, care to comment on whether your POV is a Dublin-centric or not? Are you assessing Ireland based on Dublin? That wouldn't be exactly accurate.

    So you've excluded the NHS which is one of the oldest public health systems in Europe and for a variety of reasons the most comparable to Ireland. Any other countries you'd like to include from your data set? Poland for example? Of are you just cherry picking your data to be the best health services in Europe? As I stated, health news rarely travels borders (other than UK) but the idea of no issues elsewhere is perplexing and not plausible. There are issues in every EU country.

    I also note that you've moved from "everything is ****" to focusing on A&E in Ireland. I specifically said the top 50% or in some cases the top quartile in delivering public services within the EU. You have changed to goal posts to health care among the top five countries on the planet (outside of Japan and South Korea).

    I've already commented twice that Ireland has one of the lowest population densities in Europe. We aren't the Netherlands and have a preponderance of one off housing. That has an impact delivering any form of services but especially public transport. This was and continues to be a choice of the Irish electorate.

    Again my point is, Ireland is up there with some of the best services in the world. Stating that Ireland is "totally behind most of the EU" or "terrible" is manifestly untrue. And the reason I say that is that you can then have a rational discussion about how you improve services based on data and not on anecdote.


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