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IS IT DESPERATION or simply the low calibre of the individuals running our government – from the politicians to the spin doctors and mandarins – that leads to the shoddy announcements and re-heats of announcements on stimulus this and jobs plan that?
This week we’ve got ourselves a €2.25 billion stimulus plan for the economy that, we’re told, will deliver 13,000 jobs, miles of new roads and more classrooms than you can shake a small ruler at. As per usual we had to have the representatives of Fine Gael and Labour alike deliver the announcement together, often repeating one another, to ensure that they all got their moment in the warm glow (we should seriously start adding up the ministerial, adviser and mandarin pay by the minute for these non-events, and see about cutting back. There’s a stimulus.)
Also as per usual for government announcements we had a distinct lack of clarity on the little things related to a €2,250,000,000 program. Such as, for example, where about two billion, two hundred and fifty million of the euros are going to come from. Not immediately apparent at the time of the announcement, we figured out later that €750 million will come from the National Pension Reserve Fund (the Yeti Fund, at it is fast becoming known); €850m from offloading state assets; and €100m will come from the European Investment Bank. So far, so good.
Except the government thinks that it’ll get a lot more than just that from the Europeans (one hopes but doubts that they know that); we’ve got to raise hundreds of millions more from the private sector; and the €850m from the sale of state assets is neither guaranteed nor tied to any timeframe in the near future. So, we’re €550m short and the other €1.7bn is not quite money resting in our account, your honour.
The whole stimulus will hardly be a shot in the arm to the struggling economy, like the near trillion dollars the US pumped in after President Obama came to office. No sir. Our stimulus program is slated to run to about 2018 (by which time, if Obama wins in November, his successor will be in the middle of their first term.)
So far, situation normal (AFU) for the Irish government. Ministers got to do the press thing and talk up all the goodies coming to their const… departments. There will, hopefully, be some projects actually underway come the local elec… soon. The National Children’s Hospital might as well become a geriatrics institution for all the times it has been re-announced.
The trouble is that this stimulus, even spread out to 2018 and by offloading things like extraneous state assets and providing some infrastructure, is just another giant waste of money. It’s not even that good of a PR effort for a giant waste of money, being delivered in such a half hearted fashion to a jaded Irish public.
This is one of the measures that the government wants to take to kick-start the Irish economy. Fair enough. But it is just another drop of warm spit into the cold ocean of our problems. Even if this stimulus delivers 13,000 jobs they’re transient, and spread over such a long period of time as to hardly move the needle. Yes, more classrooms will be great to have but in the bigger picture we’re still educating kids in them today who won’t have great job prospects come their graduation given the glacial pace of reform and economic growth in Ireland.
The government complains that it can only do so much. It can try and reform hundreds of different elements of its bureaucracy to make it easier for people to do business and it can wring whatever juice it can find from the NPRF or by selling off a few trees, but spread over time and distance this doesn’t go far enough.
The trouble is that the government keeps naturally avoiding the giant white elephant in the room. If government wants to provide a stimulus to the economy it ought to cut its own spending so that it can cut taxes, or deliver no new taxes, to individuals and families.
This stimulus program may move the needle a little in 2013, but I can assure you that a much increased property tax to pay for inefficient local government will move it more in the other direction. The fear of increased taxes on anything from our water to our incomes will sway consumer confidence and spending right to where we’ve seen it in the past few years – in the toilet.
Government wants to do what it really like to do, which is beg, borrow or steal (well, we can’t borrow) whatever money it can find and spend it. Never is the question, “If our income is at 2004 levels, shouldn’t our spending be too…?”
It’s a tired old solution that hasn’t been working to date. The government wants to make itself look busy in the absence of any real change, but what will the majority of people remember a year from now, or think about when deciding to buy a new home, a new car, or just plain upgrade the quality of bread they buy: The stimulus… Or the fact that government dropped several hundred euro (or more) in new taxes on their heads?
Let’s let consumers create 13,000 jobs – or 130,000 for that matter – far more efficiently than the €170,000 a pop government price tag by putting money back into their pockets and by giving them certainty. Then you’ll see an economic stimulus.
Jacking up taxes is a proven way to kill the economy. Drop in the ocean stimulus spending is not a proven way to stimulate it. Our government – and all parties – clearly need to reassess their priorities and get over their fears of special interests, the bearded union warriors and parish pump trouble makers, and make real and tangible policies to support our economy.
Come back to us with €2.25 billion in tax cuts for 2013, with commensurate cuts in spending, and the Irish people in the street will give you your stimulus.
Aaron McKenna is a businessman and a columnist for TheJournal.ie. You can find out more about him at aaronmckenna.com or follow him on Twitter @aaronmckenna.
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In a company with 10 people where 1 earns 250K per year, 1 earns 225K & 1 earns 175K and the remaining 7 people each earn 50K the AVERAGE wage is 100K.
However in that company 70% of the people working only earn 50% or 1/2 of the AVERAGE wage, 30% earn an AVERAGE of 2.2 times the AVERAGE, while the top paid 10% earn 2 1/2 times the average.
As we all know the Public Service is full of Management grades, which like the company above pushes the AVERAGE wage well above what the majority actually receive.
What every 1st year Business Studies student will tell you and most likely every Leaving Cert Maths Student also, is that the AVERAGE is a useless way of measuring anything, what you need are the MEAN & MODE. Which by the way the Government refuse to allow the CSO publish!
What is the only reason for not publishing the MEAN & MODE? So the Government can sit happy in the knowledge that they are not “overpaying” themselves compared to the AVERAGE.
100% Agree. The AVERAGE PS worker is poorly paid. The pension levy the working PS pay which essentially pays for the retired PS workers is grossly unfair and daylight robbery.
We need to slice large chunks of senior positions out of the PS and close almost all Quangos (I can’t think of one I’d leave but you never know)
Do that and the PS pay average would be lower
”As we all know the Public Service is full of Management grades, which like the company above pushes the AVERAGE wage well above what the majority actually receive.”
this IMO is true .
as for pensions – the PS pensions have been cut too under FEMPI 20123 [ ie The Financial Emergency Measures In The Public Interest ]] in other word s – to pay for bank bailouts . Reductions in pensions vary from 0% to 28 %
The mean and the average are the same thing. Maybe you meant the median?
I think publishing the median and mode is a superb idea, but your analysis of average is somewhat flawed. With only a sample size of 10, then one or two high (or low) figures can significantly skew the figures. But in a sample size of the number of people employed in the PS, that argument doesn’t hold true.
Why do these reports constantly refer to “the average” wage. If one person is on 30k a yr and another is on 150k, then “the average” wage is 80k !! Reports like this should use the “median” wage to stop results being skewed !
then they wouldn’t be skewed and they do not want that. How can you justify houses prices at their current level when most people are earning less than the average wage.
Ya agree what about the people like me that have nothing I’m renting and can’t buy can’t save cause of rent banks won’t look at me I’m only 50 years old and can’t go on corpo list my husband is self employed don’t have a awful lot just surviving what about our group cause there lots like me
Your group are fcuked Laurie because our tax system is completely skewed towards low paid people with kids. The more kids the better. What people forget is the kids grow up. Then ur back into way too much tax
We need a flat 15% tax with all loopholes closed.
@Plato
The median (meaningless with only two terms) in the scenario you’ve presented is exactly the same as the mean (colloquially referred to as the average). There is no skewing going on.
Earnings down, cost of living escalating, new taxes, employment figures a load of spin. Mortgage arrears frightening. Ah who cares. I’m just being negative. The dictatorship is back from holidays they’ll sort this out.
Think you have described Enda’s low cost economy there Capt. Flynn….
This should not be a problem for you. Cannabis cures everything – you said so yourself. If you take some I’m sure you will be able to laugh your head off at the entire situation.
Enda and his merry men have a plan, get them before the oust us.
Ah paddy, you’re so innocent. He didn’t say it cures everything, just a hell of a lot. And he said it because there’s an astounding amount of scientific research and results proving it which the government (and yourself) choose to ignore. Anyways, that’s not really the story here is it? You can debate this back on the cannabis story, where it belongs. Peace!
Ha! Paddy, nice of you to drop in considering I annihilated you on the last thread you chose to respond here. That’s ok, I don’t mind doing it again.
Cannabis, tax wise would be great for bringing in some revenues. I wouldn’t recommend anybody to go out and smoke it though, like I wouldn’t recommend anybody to drink frankly either. But the reality is they do and will continue to so may as well regulate and take power from criminals. It’s the intelligent thing to do.
But regulating marijuana is not going to get us out of this mess. Neither will increasng taxes and lying about employment figures, or not having a banking enquiry etc. Do you want me to give you a business plan for Ireland now or is this enough to get the debate going?
I think it’s estimated at 400 million tax revenue were cannabis legalised and regulated Capt.
Nice one Niall, that’s the type of cabbage we could do with! We need it because right now we are borrowing a fair bit of it to pay the governments SCANDALOUS wages/expense etc.
Brian Cowen gets 130k per year, he is in his mid fifities…… WHERE WOULD YOU GET IT?
Cowen appears in an IT article today Capt – http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/cowen-did-not-believe-warnings-of-economic-collapse-1.1508085
The headline should be enough to turn your stomach.
Capt. Not wanting to correct u but earnings are down in 7 out of 13 categories. They’re up over all. See our public service broadcaster has the REAL story, dressed in appropriate govt spin.
They report average earnings are “up slightly”
http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2013/0828/470751-cso-earnings-q2/
Heard that figure as well Niall, but tbh I think it’s an underestimation. Think it is the figure Ming quoted in a speech regarding legalising cannabis as an estimate for the direct tax revenue that could be generated were the sale of cannabis regulated and controlled. However, it doesn’t take into account other indirect taxes and benefits. For example, increased income taxes and reduced welfare expenditure relating to farmers, factory workers, haulage & distribution etc. from jobs that would inevitably be created by creating a new industry. Also, as it would be an agricultural product with high demand (cash crop) you would be likely to see many of these new jobs and enterprises HQing themselves in rural areas; this would lead to an increase in consumer spending in the areas that most need it, creating more indirect jobs and taxes.
We have the potential to create an all new, indigenous industry with this, and to do so relatively easily. Such opportunities are rare, and the benefits can be truly phenomenal.
Howya Scrap Cp, I would question whether they are. Improvements are in building which is essentially a standing start now, hospitality going down bad. People are earning 5c more per hour but working longer. Inflation etc, all in all these figures are not good news. But then we are conditioned now after 4/5 years of bad news and double dip recessions to consider these figures positive.
Ps. Private sector needs a boost, VAT rate of 23% was a fail.
@ Niall. It’s incredible stuff. The minister for finance didnt see it coming…. Only in Ireland can you get away with such arrogance, stupidity, wrecklessness and be rewarded so well and ring fenced from any hassle over your appalling tenure.
Good points silent majority, then again the figure doesn’t factor in the additional health expenditure costs either on the debit side. I’ve heard the figure from Ming and elsewhere too.
Either way silent majority legalisation is coming down the tracks. It’s already decriminalised as the cops don’t bother prosecuting people for small amounts for personal use anymore afaik.We should be capitalising on it one way or the other.
Not true about the cops not bothering with personal use anymore Niall, please don’t get caught out making that mistake! Friend of mine is summonsed for what the guard even described as a “fiver’s worth” – same as it always was, the cops making up the laws as they go. Re increased health costs of legalisation, that argument is thrown about a bit in relation to pretty much all vices, but is disingenuous. First off, why would health costs increase when the legal status is altered? If I smoke shed loads of weed now and end in hospital with respiratory problems, my treatment will cost the same whether what I was smoking was bought from Centra or Anto down the flats. The only way health costs would increase would be if consumption both varied & increased; counter intuitively the opposite has happened post decriminalisation in the Netherlands & Portugal.
Basically, we already suffer all the debits from cannabis as it is, and add in a few more for good measure (policing, court time, legal aid etc. etc.) but enjoy no benefits. Therefore legalisation would increase the benefits through increased employment/taxation etc. while reducing the negative impacts as we forego the ever successful and never money pit “war on drugs”, or least part of the “war”!
@Capt. I was emphasizing how RTE can put such a different spin on it. Agree vat @23% is self defeating.
Brian Cowen gets 130k per year, he is in his mid fifities…… WHERE WOULD YOU GET IT?”
that would not even be chicken feed in the City Of London or Wall st – where even worse gangsters than Cowen operate .
No issue with PS wages. Just the numbers of them. Can we close about 1,000 quangos and instead of redeploying them to other makey up jobs, actually pay them appropriate redundancy.
Can we also slice off a large portion of senior PS grades that are not necessary. Demote or bye bye.
We’d save billions every year
Most of the quangos were created between 1999-2007 under Don Bertie Ahern’s leadership. Their membership reads like delegate list of a FF ard fheis.
And none of them necessary. Each with its own CEO on €160k + pension, boards stuffed full of govt lackeys and retired civil servants claiming €500 to €1,000 each month in expenses for the monthly meeting.
About once a week I place my trusty bucket by my side and seek out quangos at random. I find their annual reports. (This is best done with the aid of google as they’re not easy to find normally). I try to skip the nauseating smug self-congratulatory introductions from the chairman and CEO and go straight to the financial sections of their annual reports. Once there I work out the average cost per worker and view the whopping salary of the pen pushing Titan that runs the place.
When the bucket is full, I stop.
I do this to make sure I stay angry.
“Weekly earnings in the public sector, including semi-state companies rose by 1.3 per cent in the year to the end of June, bringing average weekly earnings to €928.76. There was a one per cent rise in the private sector in the same period, putting weekly earnings at €623.17″
In 2006, the peak of the so-called Celtic Tiger, weekly earnings were about on par in the two sectors at around €910. Now look at them.
It’s because the private sector has lost almost 3 jobs out of seven, while half of the rest have taken pay cuts or reduced hours. The public sector has had incremental pay increases.
Incremental pay freezes lasted literally a few months, if that. Months?!
Premia rates of pay on bank holidays and Sunday remain.
Moreover, the Haddington pay deal does something unheard of in the private sector.
Pay cuts for workers above €65,000 will remain as proposed in the original deal – sliding from 5.5 per cent to 10 per cent for those over €185,000. These will be temporary, however, with half of the cuts reversed in March 2017 and the remainder in January 2018.
http://www.thejournal.ie/haddington-road-agremeent-922129-May2013/
It beggars belief.
Declan,
nder the Haddington Road agreement, paycuts for PS workers earning over 100K are permanent.
Oooooooh. Look at that average public sector wage. This is going to get nasty.
It’s understandable though. There would be very little low wage jobs in public sector i.e. cleaners, shelf stackers etc. That is going to mean it will have a higher average than private sector where there is a lot of low skill and part time jobs.
It doesn’t necessarily mean public sector is being paid unreasonably high wages
don’t forget construction sure aren’t they the reason for the property boom
Engineers, Nurses, Doctors etc are always on average going to earn more than people working manual jobs, shop assistants etc. That is just the way life is.
Sandra and there was the IMF, ECB and most of the financial leaders of the world thinking it was down to Fianna Fáil being bought lock, stock and barrel by corrupt banks and developers.
It was the chippies all along.
& what about, saaayyy,….bus drivers? *ducks*
seems the rate of sarcasm detective is down too
Yes Sandra
Them dam construction workers, who spend 4 years learning a trade on less than the minimum wage, and are the ones who actually built the schools, hospitals & roads. Yes they caused the problems.
Please check you facts. It was property developers and bankers who caused the crash, not the people who dug the sewer trenches, poured the concrete, laid the blocks and safely fitted the gas cookers.
You can juggle the figures anyway you like,the fact remains that the unions supported benchmarking is totally responsible for the 300 euro per week difference the public sector enjoys over the private sector,all funded by the taxpayers.
Did you actually read the article Richard?
Richard doesn’t read articles. He just comments.
Richard
You may have read the article but you certainly do not understand or grasp even the basics.
Can you maybe even guess why an engineer or surgical nurse gets more than a cleaner and its not down to Karl Mark, the Unions or Bosco.
Carcu Sidub,
A newly qualified nurse now earns about €490 (€25,000 per annum after four years education/training). A new entrant lecturer in third level receives approx €32-36,000 per annum, having spent at least 6 years, probably closer to 8 years, in education (degree, masters, Ph.D). They may have completed, in addition, a couple of years postdoctoral research and spent 2/3 years working part-time, uncontracted hours lecturing in two, three, four different institutions weekly (with no holiday pay, pension, security etc.). I don’t begrudge anybody their weekly wage, but average construction workers wage is €37,345.36 per annum (not all constructions workers have completed 4 years apprenticeship) is a very good income (and that is in a recession).
Construction worker ain’t on no 37000 no more . Most labourers are on.minimum wage and and trades if they have work lucky with 550 live in the real world.
Vivian,
Take your complaint to the Central Statistics Office. They provided these statistics.
By the way, €550 a week (gross or net?) equals to €28,600 per annum – far from the average minimum wage of around €15-16,000 a year (based upon minimum wage rate of €8.65 @ 35 hour week).
Ha that construction one made me laugh – if wages in construction have seen the largest increase it’s probably only because they seen one of the largest decreases during the recession – over 60% reduction for some, and good luck to finding a job now – a whole age group of middle-aged men with families to feed and mortgages to pay and we’ve left them to rot on the scrap heap!
Realitycheque – not sure what the situation is for individuals, but any family only taking in 15,000 to 16,000 euros a year would qualify for FIS supplement – which states a family with one child should be bringing in 506 euro a week!
Richardmccarthy hit the nail squarely on the head. Bench marking resulted in the ludicrous situation where my Da (aged 71, retired 21 years – yes, at 50) is now on a much bigger pension than his salary when he retired. Still not a lot mind u but there’s 100s of thousands of him
Poppysmith,
You do not automatically qualify for FIS based on earnings. You have to be working 20 hours or more a week to qualify.
Quailifed as a staff nurse in 2012 and my average weekly wage is €422 take home.
The figures above are gross.
I don’t know which button to press – If I green thumb – am I saying I’m happy that you’re only getting €422pw, if I red am I down-voting an undervalued nurse?
22k pa. Not bad for first year in the job if that’s gross. I assume you’ll get increments each year until u reach 40k after 9 yrs.
Once u reach that sit back and chillax. That’s all the govt want u to earn. They take over half of anything over that off u
yes, it IS gross how little nurses get, yet other cushy unskilled work pays out big-time.
If its take home then its net, so it would be more like €27k a year. Not to be sniffed at, but its a hard job all the same.
No increments for 3 years due to Haddington Rd, yet the elite pen pushers on the pigs back, also only temp contracts due to moratorium,
Matt, newly qualified staff nurse are not the lowest paid workers in the public service, :( so less of the nurse bashing guy, you may need me someday
quite the opposite – I’m a BIG fan of what you guys do & am an advocate of better remuneration for nurses. My gripe is, and always has been, with self-serving unions supporting the wrong “causes”.
The Haddington Road Agreement along with CP I & II were all designed to protect the elite, not the low paid.
This is why so much emphasis was put on their being no redundancies. There should have been about 80,000 – all Quango staff and higher grade PS. From 2000 to 2008 there were unprecedented unsustainable numbers of promotions to senior levels
Good point Scrap Croke Park1. Prime example even after CP & the Haddington Road agreement Cowen pension is over €140k a year less then a €10k drop. Sickening…
@Kerry, in honour of MLK I too have a dream. My dream is that come 2016 a new party will have emerged and captured the hearts, imagination + hopes of this great nation. A party with people of integrity and not just out for sticking their snouts in the trough
This party will cap all PS pensions at 65k thru a new Public Service Pension Levy. This will primarily affect the 100+ currently retired govt ministers (Ahern, Cowan + hopefully Kenny) and former PS mandarins
It will abolish the TV license and let RTE sink or swim. People who cannot pay this tax will no longer be imprisoned
It will abolish car tax, put 10c on a litre of petrol to replace it + close the car tax offices. This will do away with so much wasteful admin
I dream of closing 1,000 Quangos so we can introduce a flat 15% tax on all income, close all tax loopholes, and get our young generation to come home
I dream of living in a country where U can make real money even if u work for “the man”. That people can keep most of what they earn.
I dream of being safe to walk home at night. Of being safe in my own home. Of knowing that anyone who commits 3 serious crimes will be put away for 7-10 years.
Most of all I dream that my kids will have some kind of sustainable future on this Island. Because as things stand they have none.
If we can’t rise up for ourselves, we owe it to the generation coming behind to clear house in the next General Election and put an end to parish pump civil war politics forever
Scrap CP, why don’t you run? You’d have my vote, and my family’s votes, if you brought those proposals forward. You seem very intelligent and knowledgable on the subject, and that exactly what we need. No more wastage, efficiency is the only way out of our mess.
Thank you Amy. That’s extremely flattering.
Unfortunately I’m not the kind of person who would listen sympathetically to an individual looking to be bumped up the housing list, or skip the queue ahead of someone else inline for a College grant. I’m also useless with potholes ;-)
But thank you again. You made my day!
At the end of the day we have too many civil servants doing lower than average working week.kildare cc staff on 32 hours nurses on 35 guards on 36 I work for a multinational and when we are busy we can do 60 hours a week. Pay for performance is only way to go
There are so many falsities in that comment that I think I need a lie down.
Nurses do much more than that but teachers? Oh I can’t talk about teachers working hours, or I’ll need a lie down
all wages down .government wages up and we still lick their arse. good old Ireland lambs to the slaughter
Every I work with have seen wage increases of between 2.5-5%. The days of going in to the Civil service to make good money are well gone, few at the top do but the rest are stuck in there.
To be fair, Jim, Govt ministers wages fell permanently by between 6.5 and 8% on 1 July along with other senior people in the public service (consultant doctors, university professors, senior civil servants). Like it or not, when one includes the pension levy, PSRI and the USC) their take-home pay has fallen by over 30% since 2009.
From seriously too high levels Connaughtabu
Ah lads the government ain’t all that…..
sorry I couldn’t even finish writing it….what I meant to say
WHAT A SHOWER OF BASTARDS!!!
As you were folks ……..
Might have dropped by 30% Connaughtabu but it is still way to much.
their take-home pay has fallen by over 30% since 2009.”
– yes – but the higher levels had a high level to drop from – and there are too many of them anyway – ie Government .
Just stating it as it is – “senior” workers in the public service have taken a 30%+ plus pay cut since 2009.
Whether they earn too much, who knows.
How many of us could make it to be a consultant surgeon or a professor of physics?
Wages are either rising in line with inflation or falling for most people. In the Multi-national sector they are up overall.
However most jobs here are in SME’s and they are falling.
Property comeback is a joke that is focused on a few very select areas. For most in their 20′s property is still over priced and will drop to meet their wage reality and the fact that so many of the next buying generation has left.
You are still way ahead of European earnings.
Many people are still in denial in Ireland Mark.
Number 5 in Europe. Ireland is ahead of Britain, France and Germany and many more larger countries in the EU.
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-salaries-europe-wages-2011-9?op=1
Yes PS are higher paid but look at the tax regime. Totally set up for lower paid to pay negative income tax, for medium paid to pay more than than fair share and for higher paid to get rode.
For the record, I view low pay as 20k, medium as 50k, high as 100k
Why do people compare public sector jobs against private sector by saying Doctor/Nurse Vs. a cleaner?
You could easily switch it and say – A scientist with Elan Vs a road sweeper?
Either way someone is not taking their share of cuts in the PS when the government is getting squeezed dry…
Ahhhh ….gross amounts …..will the journal stop using these gross figures and use nett figures instead !!
More bullshit from the journal.ie..whos arse did the author pull this crap from ?
have your say