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PUBLIC EXPENDITURE MINISTER Brendan Howlin has insisted that it is in the personal interests of public workers to accept pay cuts – as they would stand to benefit if the country regains its financial independence.
The comments, in an exclusive interview with TheJournal.ie, come as Howlin prepares to meet with Labour Relations Commission chairman Kieran Mulvey – amid some suggestions that a revised deal with public unions on cut pay and conditions may still be possible.
Though the future of a deal remains uncertain, Howlin affirmed that the Budget for 2013 had incorporated effective pay cuts of €300 million – and said it was still necessary to achieve those cuts if Ireland was to get back on its feet.
Asked if this was tantamount to telling workers that a pay cut was in the national interest, however, Howlin said workers should see the lessening of their conditions as a short-term offering for long-term personal good.
“No, it’s in the personal need, and in the interest of every citizen of Ireland that we return to solvency; that we return to normal market funding; that we are a growing economy creating jobs,” Howlin said.
Every citizen has a personal vested interest in that.
The minister suggested that a failure to cut €300 million from this year’s pay bill – with a total of €1 billion in savings by 2015 – would mean having to find further savings in areas like health, social welfare and education.
“I’m not in the business of cutting anybody wages or worsening anybody’s working patterns, but it’s an economic necessity. Just as we have cut social welfare in the past [...] just as we’ve reduced expenditure in a whole range of areas, we have to reduce the public pay bill.
“I’m not upbeat or positive in terms of having to do this,” he added, “but the problem is that it needs to be done… The government will have to govern, and we set out the budgetary parameters for this year, and we have to live within them.”
The minister said, however, that he understood the reasons why workers had rejected the Croke Park 2 deal in ballots in March and April.
“They were rejected in a ballot, and I understand. People, when they’re asked to worsen their own terms and conditions, it’s [a] very difficult thing to vote for,” he said – though insisting that it was important for the government to stick to its cost-cutting plans.
Referring to the progress Ireland had already made in bridging its Budget deficit, he said:
I’ve used the analogy of the swimmer. You know, if you’re swimming across the river, most people die in the last few yards because you’re exhausted and you’ve expended your energy so much.
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Why dont the TD s take a big pay cut and stop claiming huge expenses that would save a lot of money
Absolutely plus hand the car park at Leinster House over to a company to raise revenue like the hospitals have had to do
Social welfare costs the taxpayer €21 billion a year & hasn’t been touched yet, surely they could trim €300 million off it & leave the public sector worker alone whose taken many cuts already..
piohmy – If that were responsibly targeted then I don’t see how anyone could object.
Exactly, they should lead by example and take a pay cut themselves otherwise they are hypocrites.
I think there’s still a debate to be had relating to social welfare policy and what social responsibility and timeframe should be attached with it.
One word, flexicurity.
Look, what I’m about to say is obvious and has been pointed at already. The cuts in the public sector need to be targeted. Blanket pay cuts across all workers is about as blunt as it gets. Stop reducing the wages of those whom we rarely on, Garda, Fire services, nurses, teachers, and begin to target the dead weight, layers of bureaucracy, administration, etc. remove that and your swimmer will arrive at the other side ready to jump back in and swim back.
Yes There are perks in Social welfare that are far to generous. The country cannot no longer afford them. Yes I would agree leave the working person alone they have given enough more than they can afford.I would leave the basic welfare alone but as regards some of the perks I would get rid of them.
It’s also in the interest of Turkeys to vote for Christmas…
Why don’t the public sector take a big pay cut and stop claiming they are suffering. Wouldn’t that save a lot of money
@francis – the welfare housing situation is grinding my gears at the moment – how is it right that the average couple have to work, sometimes 2 jobs, sacrifice lifestyle and holidays in order to save a deposit and buy what they can afford, where they can afford. But if you are on welfare you can get a better home for life, no mortgage worries, no saving, in an area close to your parents. (With room for a trampoline) Amazing.
..meanwhile back on earth
Valid points Scarr
Thanks Royston. It’s a small bugbear of mine right now. 3 homes in my area are coco rented – two of those I could not afford myself – 4 bed detached homes. Families are no bother and are not loaded but how is it in anyway reasonable for that to exist. My own opinion is that a time limit of 10 – 15 years per coco home, after that time you either buy it, rent at full price or are downsized to a 2 bed apt.
“Howlin has insisted that it is in the personal interests of public workers to accept pay cuts – as they would stand to benefit if the country regains its financial independence”
Does he mean that public sector pay will be risen in the future???? What kind of world is this politician living. We TAXPAYERS want spending cut, PERIOD… If Howlin wants to raise public service pay, why doesn’t he step up to the mark and finance it himself? Irish public servants get paid significantly more than other European countries. We can’t afford to exert upward pressure on pay.
is it true that in some cases you can get s/w payment even though you are still working surely this can not be the case.???? how much is being sent out of the country like kids allowance.??? may be this should be all stopped.
..bla bla bla FG tripe, Zzz
There are people on s welfare – professionals married with mortgages – like many in public services who may also face s welfare if government does not get its way. Remembers Government has dail majority – a comfortable dail majority. and not one td for all their prattle – on airwaves and elsewhere – both in and out of government – challenged this government and last governments stand – that how and how much money the capitalisation of the banking sector until it is back in markets as normal source of funding will cost the tax payer and how the sector will be downsized and restructure is none of dail business., The term or one of the condition of eu 67.5 as government calls it ‘financial support to Ireland ‘ What s needed is that bank restructure sent back to Frankfurt by DAIL since Government (party leaders ) failing. And send the message that bank restructure not acceptable – first that EU cancels promissory notes and sanctions liquidation of IBRC. EU needs DAIL to pass legislation to collect taxes and to repossess and sell homes – they come to us looking to be re- elected but as soon as they are they drop all for party chiefs.
“I’m not in the business of cutting anybody wages or worsening anybody’s working patterns”..
..funny because I’ve lost a 3rd of my salary since 2009 and my job is being outsourced at the end of the month because of these lying blood sucking soul destroyers!
..yeah I’ll tell you how I really feel!
(..and you wonder why we voted NO to the Croke Park II, well I’ll do it again if given the choice!)
If your job is being outsourced what role will you do when it’s gone given that there are no redundancies in the public service? Honest question
Honest answer; I’m being transferred to another occupation that I have no interest in or any clue about. I had no say in this & there was nothing i could do.
Myself & my colleagues were made aware of this 4 weeks ago.
More worrying for me is the fact I’ll loose more of my income because this new proposed occupation will also be an opportunity for my employer to get rid of my weekend, travel & shift allowances.
I can his honestly tell you this is a huge part of my income & I’m at the lower end of the pay scale!
My department even comes in on budget. So where my organisations overpaid & over administered senior management think they are making savings is beyond me!
Outsourcing actually costs more for the tax payer, but hey it looks great on the books & our senior managers can justify their 120k+ per year jobs to the politicians..
Why not privatize the civil service? What would we be losing anyway?
A private company has to breakeven – a government doesn’t.
A government provides a service to its people, it’s not all about profit Jeremy ..go back to your FG handlers, your out of your depth here!
Your consistent spin blogging on this matter is quite evident from this thread..
Government – I meant public service, not the clowns who run the government ☺
€623 million euro “given away” last year to foreign aid. €300 million looking to be cut here. I totally understand and agree with the concept of foreign aid but come on there is something wrong with the ordinary folk in Ireland suffering to pay what we can’t afford to give away.
That’s about 2 months losses at AIB. the big white elephants are still stomping around
Andrew
You mean €623 borrowed million.
These pay reforms should’ve been done 10 years ago.
Jeremy likes to wind up people..
My public sector salary just about covers debts incurred while training for the job, because it has already taken a 40% cut in the time I spent getting the qualification.
So no, it’s not in my interest to take another cut.
Sure seeing as we own the banks I’m sure Howlin will personally call over and get some kind of deal going there for you? They’re nice like that…
I like to use the analogy of the swimmer. Most people swimming across a river die if somebody in a boat paid for by the swimmers won’t take their foot off their heads
The Taxpayers are the people in that position. The civil and public service just want the status-quo to be preserved at the expense of others.
Fine Gael again..
Is it in the personal interest of the public when you vote on increases to your own salary and put in hugh expense claims, managment leading by example, without it you don’t have a shred of credability.
Until the civil and public service pay rates come into line with the Eurozone benchmark, Irish Taxpayers are tired of flipping the bill.
Brendan, sorry I mean Jeremy, look out your rosé tinted windows mate..
He’s saying this as if the public sector haven’t already take a pay cut. Most public sector workers are on the same pay now as they were 10 years ago.
Not true … Most public sector staff are on much lore now ’cause they keep getting increments! In the private sector we get no such thing – a pay cut means less money in our pockets. Stop moaning and realise there are people much less well off than you who are paying your wages
True we get increments , but our wages have been cut , and increments are small for many public servants,
No bonus at Christmas and we can’t negotiate our pay rises, unlike you who pay our wages??,
We agree set rates and that is that
Did you wrote that comment with your eyes closed Eugene, because it neither makes sense nor is factually correct.
@ Eugene, nope he is right, even with those infamous increments many of the front line workers are on the same take home pay as 10 years ago. Given with one hand and taken with the other in the form of levies, tax, etc, some of which are specific to the public sector
Everyone’s payments have been cut … And with no increments.
What bonus at Christmas ??? Even in the good times we didn’t get that?
We can’t negotiate the way you guys do … That is why the public service gets paid more than the private sector!
And you can’t get fired!
Wake up guys and realise how good you’ve got it!
Could you please be more specific ?
You might be on the same pay … We are on less! That’s the point!
Private sector blah blah blah…. Eugene, you speak like everyone in the private sector is in the same boat! Not everyone has taken pay cuts. In fact I know people who have gotten a raise in the last 2 years. Friends of mine in the private sector are provided with company cars and mobile phones/iPads. I get none of these perks. So stop putting the poor mouth on…
Mate I can assure you increments are over rated, I’m earning less than €35,000 now. I’m working 13 years as a public servant. MY INCREMENTS STOPPED AFTER 5 YEARS. The other big myth is my pension, my employer contributes 0, yes ZERO, absolutely nothing to my pension & thats across the board with almost 2,000 of my colleagues..
Don’t let the government fool you, when they are finished sucking the life from your “evil” public servants, they are going straight after the private sector. Divide & Conquer is the clever strategy & it’s works really well for them..
Royston, did your increments stop because you reached the top of your payscale? Public service increments are tiny and lots of people reach the top of their scale but aren’t earning the average industrial wage. Now there is an agenda to divide and conquer the public service into front line and non front line staff. This gets the highest paid public servants (such as our government minister’s) off the hook, leaving those who can least afford it to take even more cuts.
Eugene
I was talking to a University Lecturer over the weekend. They were telling me with all the pay cuts, pensions’ levies, taxes etc, that even though they have received increments, they are taking home less money now than in 2005. This for somebody with a PhD, who is now looking to leave this country and bring their PhD spouse with them. If this keeps going who will teach the next generation of PhD’s? Actually who will teach the next generation at all? Not the failed teachers in Leinster House I’ll tell you, for these people won’t get out of bed for less than €150k per year.
This is the kind of divisive sentiment that achieves nothing.
How exactly do you pay our wages?
Genuine question.
Do our taxes (circa 30-35%) of gross pay in total not pay our own wages or yours for that matter?
5 year increments, that’s all I was entitled too mate, I’m not cribbing.
My job is tough enough but when times were better I bought my home. Now I can barely pay the ever increasing mortgage & keep food on the table, this is NO exaggeration.
Now I have no idea how I can pay my mortgage with these latest cuts I’m facing in the coming weeks..
Its just difficult to keep reading ignorant comments about these super duper increments we are meant to have, this great pension & how we are lucky to have about job security when we simply don’t have any of these..
How dare Howlin try entice public servants with promises of rewards when the economy turns around!
How ignorant & confident they must be to think they will ever get another vote or return to government.
Sadly I believe our next general election will be an angry one for voters & we will see the likes of SF gain large seats if not run this government..
I would have scoffed at this a few years ago but now I know who I’ll be voting for..
Someone should tell Howlin that it’s in nobodies interest to find themselves unable to pay their mortgage or feed their familiy due to income cuts. Of course it is a bit different when your earning over €100k isnt it Howlin. Who believes him take austerity and things will improve. Alice in wonderland stuff.
Not all public servants have a “mortgage”. The government should not surrender its position like it did countless times in the past.
Jeremy is a member of FG
It’s in the personal interest of public servants to vote out labour and Fine Gael at the next election (without voting in the Fianna Fáil muppets )
We sure would have a great government in SF and ULA and independents a rag bag of a government.
The sad thing Oliver is they could not be worse then the main stream political parties such as FF, FG & LAB……
“… most people die in the last few yards …” Is this man for real???
Beware of socialists in Mercs, especially ones like Quinn who also sends HIS kids to a private, fee paying school!
I don’t know how they expect us to live! Cutting wages on one hand and then expecting us to pay more on the other! I struggle at the minute but when full property tax and then water charges don’t know where that money will come from to pay them.
Why don’t the civil service take a pay cut and stop moaning and groaning.
..Jeremy will jump up and down until somebody listens..
Royston remember that song jeremy by pearl jam about a little boy who got bullied seems jeremy never grew up and still has a lot of hate in em needs a hug r something
Hey Jeremy – why do you repeat yourself on every comment? And never offer anything other than the trolling equivalent of fishing with dynamite?
Hey Jeremy – why do you repeat yourself on every comment? And never offer anything other than the trolling equivalent of fishing with dynamite?
Hey Jeremy – why do you repeat yourself on every comment? And never offer anything other than the trolling equivalent of fishing with dynamite?
Hey Jeremy – why do you repeat yourself on every comment? And never offer anything other than the trolling equivalent of fishing with dynamite?
Hey Jeremy – why do you repeat yourself on every comment? And never offer anything other than the trolling equivalent of fishing with dynamite?
Hey Jeremy – why do you repeat yourself on every comment? And never offer anything other than the trolling equivalent of fishing with dynamite?
Hey Jeremy – why do you repeat yourself on every comment? And never offer anything other than the trolling equivalent of fishing with dynamite?
Hey Jeremy – why do you repeat yourself on every comment? And never offer anything other than the trolling equivalent of fishing with dynamite?
LOL!!! :D
I hope these talks to rescue Croke Park 2 don’t end up in a grandiose announcement that a deal has been reached only to discover that it is a smoke and mirrors one designed to get the Government and Unions off the hook.
What else will it be, Labour and the heads of the union unions need a deal or else they are severely compromised.
They will lie, spin and bluff their way in the hope that the membership and public don’t read all the terms and conditions.
Minister howlin needs to wake up! A temporary measure it won’t be. Once those terms and conditions are given up, they’ll never be given back. As one of the commenters said stop giving so much foreign aid. Look after your own citizens first!
Changing times my friend. Time we looked at what we pay compared to other European countries. i.e. Benchmarking
More Fine Gael spin
@Jeremy
Time to change account name again. Nobody cares what you have to say. Your points have been answered in detail many times.
You died as soon as you got into the water, your employment contract will soon be up and you wont be rehired bredan Because you lied on your application
Where’s a proper debate, if we need to cut back fine, there has to be different options,
What are they, blanket cuts to pay, is all we can see,
Prefer reducing numbers myself, route and branch assessment of positions , if not needed goodbye,
Removing allowances, maybe , but not for those working shift,
Come on you guys show something other than blanket cuts
Problem with that Shay is that your colleagues won’t agree to those ideas either
What debate are you looking for? A minister is talking to some unelected ex-union guy who represents no one, and we are expecting a debate? Next week, Gilmore will chat to his wife about education and come out with some vacuous waffle as well.
Howlin is a traitor and a liar. Both he and his party lied to the public at the general elections and now they are FG’s. He like all the rest of our politicians are only in it for the money and their pensions which ate guaranteed, not like ours
Our pensioners ate loosing benifits, and not only suffering pension cuts but their entire pensions.
Yes I forgot theft, how remiss of me, all those hidden expenses and regulations which work for you at the publics expense. IS THEIR ONE HONEST DECENT POLITICIAN IN THIS COUNTRY.
No! “Honest” and “Politician” are mutually exclusive terms! As soon as you hear a politician say he’s there to serve the people, you’d better start looking for a menu, because you’re probably on it!
In fairness royston how dare you think having the right to a decent wage to live on. ..ur lucky to have a job , the government are doing a bang up job etc etc yada yada ur probably one of those who took millions in personal loans buggered off to us put everything in the wifes name.
ah ta be sur, fiddle dee diddlllleee doooo, ah sur tis u should be down on yer wee fetlocks prayin to the lard jaysus that ye have an oul job…..ya should be so tankful dat ye shud be happy like to get bent over six way ta sunday cause ye have an oul job.
Sur tis anyone who has an oul job shud be doin it fer free, sur tis ye be lucky enough to have a job just so as ye can do it fer free.
Awesome, My Dawg, awesome. Thankfully there’s still some wit and amusement to be had on Divide & Conquer Comment Thread No.73,549.
WE HAVE TAKEN PAYCUTS!!!!
But your rates are still miles ahead of the Eurozone benchmark.
Jeremy lives on button moon with mr.spoon
I hope the unions do hold out and make the Government legislate for pay cuts, and here is why.
After they bring in the forced pay cuts they will also have to being in cuts to pensions. Remember Biffo & Bertie are sitting on their fat you know what’s with over €150k each per year, even though neither has reached the minimum retirement age. And they get to keep them as they are “property”, even though we have a property tax.
How much money would be saved if Government pensions were only paid when people reach 65?
How much money would be saved if Government pensions were reduced if other sources of income are reduced are taken into account? Why not deduct the other from the “retired” Ministers state pension? After all they are still “working” if they have another income?
Why does a 55 year old “retired” Minister get say €120k as a state pension, but also gets to keep the income, yet another 55 year old normal workers who is lucky to still have a €30k job, still has to wait 10 years for a state pension?
To me the answer is simple, CORRUPTION.
Pensions Minister, there is another way to save the country some money, but being corrupt I take it you won’t look at this option, will you!
Same old stuff – wagging a finger and warning that it’s “for the best”
Of course the subtext is that wages going down in the public sector means private sector wages will follow – and then who’s going to spend any money? Following that, car retailers etc will moan about slow sales figures (more) and push for a scrapage scheme or some kind of support and we’ll all end up paying a bit for someone’s new car.
And will the cost of services go down? Nope. So basically, no change except to make people poorer and expect them to volunteer for that? Not with no leadership setting the way…. and not with the kind of vague, insulting insinuations that they’ve kept putting out.
They really must think that Irish workers are complete masochists.
What is so ridiculous about Howlin and all the major political parties is that at the same time, they are spinning the BS/PR that Ireland is some ‘poster child’ for austerity policies.
The Government has just saved over €1.5 billion by getting a long term finance deal on the Promissory Notes. Yet despite this, they say yet more cuts are needed to pay & welfare benefits, & taxes must increase. This would not be the case if austerity had succeeded.
The policies are a failure, as predicted by people who do understand macro economics. A failure here, failure in Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy etc. – everywhere.
Howlin said. “……in the interest of every citizen of Ireland…..that we are a growing economy creating jobs,”
There is no possibility whatever that removing yet more money from the economy will create jobs, nor will any real growth occur to do so.
It is the continued lack of aggregate demand spending in the economy which is causing the mass unemployment.
We have mass unemployment, falling wages & large numbers, especially the young, emigrating. Yet not one of these politicians is saying anything about when these policies will, if ever recover these jobs. Even the Dept of Finance, proven thus far to be so wildly optimistic we might just well go to Mystic Meg, are not forecasting anything much better than a 2 or 3 percentage point fall in the ‘official’ 14% inside 5 years.
Yet Howlin, presumably on the orders of the Troika is proposing to continue a pro-cyclical policy which will simply result in more of the same.
He is either completely incompetent in macro economics (quite likely anyway) or is simply following a propaganda script, or both. None of which is in the interests of the majority of citizens who elected him.
Enough is enough.
We must demand the cancellation of this austerity insanity across the Eurozone, and insist that a means of applying counter cyclical policies, thus far omitted by design, is adopted for the Euro system.
Indeed, by definition, the jobs will not be created unless & until the money supply is increased by some means or other. Banks are not willing to increase lending any more than debt ridden & income bereft citizens are willing to increase borrowing. That only leaves one sector – the government/public – who can increase the money in the economy.
Just as €1 trillion was recently conjured by the ECB for private banks, by keyboard, at near zero interest, finance to stimulate the economy can be produced in the same way at zero cost to anyone. Fiat currency creation was royally abused by banks, time its facilities were appropriately used for public purpose.
Instead of creating arbitrary & stupid ‘rules’, the Euro zone needs to implement a mechanism for at least the same counter cyclical financing at near zero interest that sovereign currency nations have, because their central banks dictate interest rates, not ‘markets’ (which care only for profit, not people). There are lots of ways of doing this.
The ‘starve your way to health’ present stupidity is a political choice.
Howlin should be joining with others in Europe to stop this vandalism now, instead of destroying the livelihoods of even more citizens.
So Howlin,
If Ireland make it back into the rosy financial independence of which you speak – you Tory thatcherite wanabes are going to restore all these pay cuts and give back the conditions you think you’re going to take from us?
Thought not.
You speak through your bottom Brendan traitorous a88ehole Howlin
I’d love to see a lot of td’s jump into that river he was talking about……chancers the lot of them.
ok so basically he is saying that if public pay is cut that public wages will go back up when the economy eventually becomes better?? that is bull
F@ck off, Howlin. Just f@ck off.
Monday morning. Back to work.
..some of us have been working all weekend Jeremy, the real world doesn’t stop at 4pm Fri when you meet your mates for pints & out the world to right..
The biggest disgrace to county wexford and Ireland..
what has been leaked so far adds up to smoke and mirrors…take a cut now but your getting it back in 2 years time, im in the private sector for a company that provides a cleaning service in a hospital my staff saw a reduction in hours , premium pay,and no pay rises…yet the public sector worker i liasie with on a daily basis continues to enjoy no cuts in hours,salary,increments etc and has all the bank hols off,no absentee management,sick days that would never be entertained in the real world and gets paid a grade 4 wage for managing one person
You should be ashamed of yourself, working for a company that I see everyday exploiting people, contract companies are paid quite well, why not let your earning filter down to those who earn it, the people who clean!
“no cuts” – and what world are you living in where public sector workers have had no cuts?
but even assuming there are unionised public sector workers getting paid better than you for the same, or even less, work what is your point?
surely the problem is that “your staff’s” wages and conditions aren’t good enough and need to be better.
what do you think will happen if public sector pay and conditions get cut? will the private sector bosses (of which it seems you might be one) take this as an excuse to cut the pay and conditions of private sector workers.
this kind of “race to the bottom” approach is not in the interests of any working people – it only serves the interests of the bosses and their government.
An injury to one in an injury to all – a victory for any group of workers is a victory for us all.
You first Brendan. Lead from the front please.
Comments readers, have a nice day.
No!
We just found out most swimmers die.
Terrible news.
On a monday morning?
Temporary measures, as temporary as PRSI over forty years ago. He is right about most of us feeling like swimmers who are on the verge of drowning though, after four and a half years of failed austerity policies that have made the problem worse across the whole EU, while the real causes of this crisis are ignored and rewarded by having their bills paid by the rest of us. Government spending did not cause the crash in Ireland, yet they are using this crisis to attack workers wages and conditions. We will continue with failed austerity policies even after its biggest champions have said they cause more harm than good, we should all sacrifice our wages conditions and living standards to get back to the markets for another forty years of living hand to mouth to pay the bills of others, because if we don’t financial bombs will go off and there will be no money in the ATM s to pay our wages, how stupid do they think we are ? But then again, when you see FG FF returned first and second in the last by election, maybe they are right.
Senior Ministers, alongside extremely well paid workers in the Private Sector, need to lead by example.
you can stick CP2 where the sun dose not shine howlin
Bravo!
Nice to see Enda’s little Rottweiler out and about again – he has been very quiet recently!
Coverage on RTE1′s Morning Ireland this am would give the impression that son-of-Croke Park 2 is home and dry with even the gardai happy-as-larry with the new offer.
I would however caution against public outbursts of celebration at this stage:
1. The health sector is not yet convinced
2. No mention has been made of talks with the education sector (from primary school to universities) which was 100% against CP-2
If anyone out there can read the tea leaves, I would appreciate your comments.
:-))
Drink the Cool Aid,go on its refreshing.Oh Labour where art thou?
have your say