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THE FORMER FINANCE Minister’s right-hand man has said the government should consider raising the age of retirement.
John Moran, who was the key advisor to former Finance Minister Michael Noonan and the former Secretary General of the Department of Finance, said raising the age of retirement by up to two years could save several billion Euro.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, he said nowadays politicians often focus on the small stuff, like the increase on tax on cigarettes, rather than the bigger questions because it is hard to get people to engage with them.
Instead, he said the focus of this Dáil is on other issues, such as water refunds.
“Too often our budgetary decisions focus on what are actually very small items – rather than the big picture,” he said.
“[Such as] When you decide ‘we’re not going to pay for water’, which is a service we use. It seems logical that you pay and in fact if you do pay, you tend to probably want to use less of it, which is good ecologically. When we decide that actually we aren’t going to charge people for that, we have to make and understand the other side of the equation of that because there is an equation and money doesn’t grow on trees,” he added.
Moran first joined the Department of Finance in 2012, but it wasn’t long before the new Secretary General was making headlines, with the €85,000 spent on his headhunt coming in for scrutiny.
His career to date has seen spells at Zurich Bank, Zurich Capital Markets, Dublin law firm McCann Fitzgerald, as well as opening a juice bar in Cordes-sur-Siel in the South of France.
When he joined the department, it was a baptism of fire for Moran when he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee in June of 2012, to account for how the government managed to overstate its debt liabilities by more than €3.6 billion.
He left the department in 2014.
Tackling the cost of living
Speaking ahead of October’s Budget, Moran said the focus needs to shift away from the likes of tax cuts and water refunds on to bigger ticket items such as raising the age of retirement and reducing the cost of living.
Moran said TDs have ignored the result of the last election, which he said clearly showed that voters are willing to forego tax cuts in return for improved services.
“The last election to my mind was a very clear message that if money was spent wisely, people in the country were prepared to defer tax cuts and in fact to defer money in their own pockets, if it could be spent wisely for the common good. That’s what parliament should decide. They are the ones that ultimately set what the level of spending should be, what the level of taxation should be.
“We are still an incredibly rich country by international standards. So why is it that we have such poor infrastructure? It’s because we make decisions to spend on money on other things,” Moran said.
“There is no tooth fairy for infrastructure – you have to make choices… As far as I am concerned, at the moment, we are spending money providing income to people, but not necessarily everybody, to catch up with the rising cost of living,” he explained, giving one example of how the government could aim to reduce costs for the public.
“Imagine if you actually reduced the cost of public transport in Dublin. That would benefit the people who can’t afford a car, it will probably benefit people that are poorer in society and it could be €2 a day. That is a tenner a week, that is almost €50 a month after tax income – it is an awful lot of money for an awful lot of families,” he said.
“What’s different about our politics at the moment is very often we seem to have some parties that seem to believe money grows on trees and that actually there is a cost to these decisions,” Moran said, adding that it is time to call out other parties on their costed budgets, and to explore whether they are actually feasible.
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1 in 2 people are either male or female
Surely that should be everyone is either male or female.
I’m 21 days smoke free :-)
Great keep it up its hard for you but well worth the effort !
Well done Aisling :)
Either make it illegal, or shut up about it. Useless story.
bollocks to that – how many hours are lost each year “outside puffing”. How many sick days a year in HSE?
They can’t afford to smoke anymore simple as…..
I’d be afraid to know the statistic of smokers in germany, nearly everybody smokes, young and old.
Yeah but there’s massive differences in Germany,
- Smoking adverts exist on billboards and bus stops
- Shops have adverts up in windows and behind the counter
- Cigs are openly for sale, one example is in Aldi where instead of sweets at the checklike like you have in Ireland they have cigs…hundreds of the things!
- Many streets have cig vending machines that can be used anytime.
Goes to show that Ireland has done something right,
As much as i dont like smoking its not illegal for god sake so i dont understand the point of the article…Who gives a sh*t!!
I’m all for the non-smoking campuses but the enforcement just isn’t there, if anyone has been to CUH you can hear that voice announcing that “Cork University Hospital is a smoke-free campus, the smoke from your cigarette is directly effecting patients in the breast cancer and cardiac unit overhead etc etc” but patients, staff and visitors still smoke there regardless, plenty porters bring the patients out for a smoke no bother!
Many (not ALL) smokers have no regard for anyone else, especially in places where people have health issues.
Anyone with asthma will tell you the problems that people smoking around them can cause, the last thing such a person needs is to walk through a cloud of smoke as they leave a hospital!\
Very true, Martin. I have to run the gauntlet of smoke every 4 weeks when attending the respiratory clinic. It’s ridiculous, but I do think it’s slowly improving.
The gauntlet of smoke?
Oh the humanity!!!
First world problems strike again.
I quite enjoyed mixing that particular metaphor, Alan ;)
You might say it’s a first-world problem, and possibly it is; if I had been born in the developing world I’d be dead long before now. Remember, though, this is a hospital. People shouldn’t have to risk their own health to any degree just to pass through the doors.
What a pile of drivel?
This is about spending more money to help HSE smokers quit. I know of one person who availed of this scheme… a complete waste of money as she still puffs 20-30 per day. If HSE staff want to quit let them do so with their own cash and not the tax payer.
I say they should fire all HSE staff that cannot keep their grubby yellow fingered mitts off of the cancer sticks for the 8 hours a day they are required to be at work.
Get a grip of yourself….smoking is a personal choice. Sack the nurses, then who would be there to look after the whingers like you? Now im going to make a lovely cup of tea & have a lovely cigarette to go with it.
No doubt you won’t be worrying about the medical services, hospital beds and hospital budgets that won’t be available for your children and relatives now or in the future when they need them, because the selfish, coffin nail addicted, people like yourself are using them all up – coughing up your lungs and polluting the place while you die slowly at huge expense to the taxpayer. That won’t worry you one little bit will it ?
Nope!! It sure won’t u pathetic do gooding whinge
Well when youre out dogooding and moralling bullshitting out of you,make sure and berate the fatties in supermacs with their clogged arteries,and the alcoholics taking up valuable breathing space,and the junkies,they all need hospital beds too,at least smokers will agree with you that its a disgusting addiction,but the fatties all go around miffed about why theyre fat,as if it was a fcuking mystery!
Well said Barry!!
U sound like you could do with a smoke, would u ever light up!!! Sorry I meant lighten up……
You sound like you could be paid for by the tobacco – profits before people – industry….
The tobacco industry could pay me all day long if they wanted, I’d be delighted!!!
U sound like you could do with a smoke, would u ever light up!!! Sorry I meant lighten up……
So?
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