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Pension levy- whats your opinion
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Just wondered if any Public Sector workers out there had any opinions on this.
Pat
I think it’s a bit of a load of sh*te really. :) Seems quite unfair that we’ll have to cover the mess our government’s gotten us into.
I know that our pensions are quite generous but I don’t think this is making it very fair. My wages are relatively sh*t as it is, and I’m now going to be about 1000 euros worse off per year. People making a little more than the bare minimum wage will be taking an even bigger hit.I think they might pull back on it a little. Our government is well known for its u-turns.
Mick451 wrote:
Do you just want the opinion of public sector workers, Pat, or is it a free for all?
Free for all Mick, no holes barred.
Pat
From a private sector employee, I would gladly give 10% of my wages and probably much more if I was guaranteed a job. At the moment we are on a pay freeze and still have no job security. Currently I’m living from month to month where my job is concerned and in our office at the end of every month no one knows who will get the bad news next.
Dave.
Seaview wrote:
From a private sector employee, I would gladly give 10% of my wages and probably much more if I was guaranteed a job. At the moment we are on a pay freeze and still have no job security. Currently I’m living from month to month where my job is concerned and in our office at the end of every month no one knows who will get the bad news next.
Dave.
r
I’m exactly in the same situation – since the public sector workers are employed by a “business” (the country and the government) that is now doing badly, then they should
accept reality, as the private sector workers must.I would also accept a reasonable pay cut to maintain my job – does the public sector prefer several thousand lay-offs instead; or are they just doing the usual vested
interest gig, where any pain is acceptable once it doesn’t involve them?I agree 100%….
I’m a private sector employee; I’ve already taken a 20% pay cut & was glad to take it as it keeps me in the job for a few months more. So you can guess my thoughts when I see public sector employees complaining about this pension levy. (Although i do agree that it was inequitable, and shouldn’t have been applied to people earning a gross salary under €35,000).
“Seems quite unfair that we’ll have to cover the mess our government’s gotten us into. “
Not to be pendantic about it but the reasons we are in the mess we are in are wide ranging:
First and foremost, there is a house price crash and banking crisis all over the world; it is more or less as bad in the US and the UK as it is in Ireland, and this is the primary reason we are in the mess we are in…..Ireland may be a bit worse but not much worse…..
The reasons we are a bit worse off and not much worse off are
(i) during the economic boom in the early part of this decade, we had an interest rate that was unnaturally low for a booming economy. This drew speculators into the Irish housing market…..was this the governments fault? I don’t think so, we had a referendum to join the single currency that was fairly strongly supported by the people.
(ii) during this time, the regulators / govt did very little to put the brakes on the housing market, at a time when domestic banks were relaxing their lending criteria (which in turn was partly in response to aggresive new entrants like Bank of Scotland). Is the government at fault here? Yes it is, but so is every two-bit property developer who built a few houses on the edge of Carlow/Tuam/Longford/Cahir/Clondalkin etc etc…..
(iii) now that the international housing market has blown up, and our own has followed, we are not in a position to make our economy more competitive via devaluation of our currency. The Euro has risen by 25% against sterling….that is hitting our economy hard. Even on this website we;ve seen all the talk about prices in Jessops versus prices down south…..
Is the government to blame for the sterling problem….I don’t see how…..At this point in time, the government is grappling but doesn’t really have a clue what to do. But one thing is for sure……the government no longer has the income from taxes as so many people are becoming unemployed and (because) companies are making less profits……the quid pro quo is that it can no longer afford the expenditure on the public service. If I lose my job, do you expect me to apologise if that means a public sector worker has to take a 6% pay cut?
OK, so the rant gates are open. Here’s my slant on the whole financial mess and I’ll give real examples, again, REAL examples:
A girl accidentally falls pregnant…awww God love her. So the Corpo give her a flat for pittance money. The boyfriend moves in with his new car parked outside. She gets lone parents and so does he. Low and behold someone reports them for co-habitating and want to raise her rent to a mighty €60/week. So the boyfriend goes up to the Corpo and says he has no job and needs somewhere to stay. They give him €115/week for a flat. So, he now has a fixed abode, moves back with the girlfriend at the pittance money while he has €115/week to pay for a flat that he’s not living in.
Another girl falls prey to the pregnancy bug….same scenario where she gets a rent subsidy to rent a 4 bedroom detached house and the boyfriend moves in. He works doing a few nixers. The Corpo agrees to pay the owner of the house for the next 15 years while the sorrowful lone parent only pays what you would expect to pay for a good family feed in a chipper. This is a house I couldn’t afford to pay for with my doubtful job and even more doubtful future.
Why again take from those who are working when those who are creaming a broken system are sitting on cloud nine looking down on us poor buggers. Let’s see some reality kick in here.
Alan
Well over 100,000 people have lost their jobs in this country in the past year.
That alone is about €2,000,000,000 less in the state’s coffers per annum.
You can kick every single mother out of their apartment in Ireland but it won’t make much of a dent on that €2bn figure…
That wasn’t the implication Liam…I was referring to the lax management of the money that the government do provide with no return. Lets target the easy supply and take it from the earners is the preferred route seemingly. And €2bn…have another look. Once this is found it will have tripled.
Alan
I think we can all agree that the waste of money by all parties over the last number of years has certainly not helped our current situation. Alan is quite right, the goverment will never tackle the huge waste which is in the public sector as it would be too difficult and would upset the unions even more. I’m sure each one of us on here could give 10 examples of where our tax money is being wasted.
Dave.
Banks
Developers
GovernmentThats what went wrong over the last 10 years and particularly the last 5.
I have worked in retail for the las 12 years and had direct involvment
to some degree with developers. People went from being employee’s
to being big time developers overnight, because they could.They were being loaned in some cases unlimited money by the banks
because it was thought ‘this is never going to end, people are queueing
to buy our properties’.Everyone is paying for this even people who hav’nt bought into the
PROPERTY LADDER, well I suppose the crusties living in the burren,
co.clare are still the same as they were.Local athorities and the government were granting planning permission
on land unsuitable for construction, developers were producing low
quality, apealing property at a very premium price and all the time
the banks and government were creaming it . . .Where is the money now?
all that money made on the back of the average
person wanting to trade up to a different house and having to pay stanp duty,
Where is all that money?
houses being sold a couple of times around
over the space of the 10 years by people trying to make a bit of profit,
Where is the money?
We have gone from being the second wealtiest country in Europe in 2007 to being
a country with a terrible credit rating now ,
Where is the money?Answer: about 5% of the population have it, they are collectively knows as the
CELTIC TIGER.The celtic tiger visited my door all right, and left me with a lovely Car and House,
which have to be paid back.We all bought into this smoked screen or rather we were sold something that was
really false advertising for the last number of years and now we all
have to pay for it. but I think there should be a threshold regarding who must pay.
The top earners of this country should have to pay a bigger percentage as they are the
ones who benefited mostly from the crazieness of the BOOM years,Well it has definately gone BOOM now.
Where is it going to end?
To All Staff
Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown of economy in the country since last Christmas, Management
has decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 40 years of age on early retirement. This scheme will be known as
R4PE (Retire Aged People Early).Persons selected to be R4PED can apply to management to be eligible for the SHAFT scheme (Special Help After Forced
Termination). Persons who have been R4PED or SHAFTED will be reviewed under the SCREW scheme (Scheme Covering
Retired Early Workers).A person may be R4PED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as Management deems appropriate.
Persons who have been R4PED can only get AIDS (Additional Income for Dependants or Spouses).or HERPES
(Half Earnings for Retired Personnel Early Severance). Obviously persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not
be SHAFTED or SCREWED any further by management.Persons staying on will receive as much SH1T (Special High Intensity Training) as possible. Management has always
prided itself on the amount of SH1T it gives employees. Should you feel that you do not receive enough SH1T, please
bring it to the attention of the supervisor. They have been trained to give you all the SH1T you can handle.Have a good day
Managing Director
The problem with the public/private argument is that:
A)The private sector believe that no one in the public sector actually does any work, an image fed by complaining corrupt unions.
B)The public sector believes that everyone in the private sector made loads of money while the Celtic Tiger was roaring.
Neither of these things are true. It’s like seeing a few fans at a football match fighting and saying all English fans are football hooligans. There are a small percentage of public sector workers who are getting paid and do very little or nothing at all… there are too much administrative positions in some areas and there does need to be reforem…but its only a small percentage of people who are at fault. Similarly, not all private sector workers made loads of money in the boom. Public sector workers are looking at the construction field and all the money that people made from it… a very small percentage of the private workforce. Well I’ve been in the private workforce all my careers, usually working for american companies, and I can tell you I never saw the kind of money that would make me rich, and neither did most of my colleagues over the years.
There is too much generalisation and painting of groups with one brush. The public sector need to open their eyes to the reality of private sector situation and the reality of the situation the country is in, and the private sector need to do the same for the public. This divide could cast the country into more trouble than its already in.
Oh… and we need to get rid of the unions. The chip on the shoulder mentality that most of the active members have is quite pathetic and has always caused problems for this country. It has fed the mismanagement of the public sector for years.
Jody wrote:
The problem with the public/private argument is that:
A)The private sector believe that no one in the public sector actually does any work, an image fed by complaining corrupt unions.
B)The public sector believes that everyone in the private sector made loads of money while the Celtic Tiger was roaring.
.
There is one other thing that private sector employees think about public service employees. That is there is really no accountabilty and really no measures of performance.
Quiet simply public service employees never get fired unless there is crminal misconduct and even then maybe not.
Examples
1) Former Director General of FAS presided over gross mis-management of public monies in FAS. This was publicly admitted and is now accepted as fact. What happened? The Director General resigns. Gets a whopping big severance package and full pension. The Board of Directors who are supposed to oversee the organisation are still in employed. Nobody had to suffer the consequences.
2) The Financial Regulator whose job it is to regulate the banks and protect depositors, shareholders and the public interest has failed in his responsibility utterly. While he has retired early on a full state indexed linked pension and a severance package …….thousands of pensioners and investors face massive losses. Nobody in the financial regulator’s office has had to face the consequences.
3) Women in this country have died because of misdiagnosis of breast cancer. Medical staff and administrators too occupied with petty politics about where hospitals should be located etc. have not concentrated their resources on the important things. As a consequence women have died and others have suffered untold stress. How many hospital staff, whether medical or administrative have been fired.
4) Useless voting machines never to be used – what public sector employee paid for that fiasco?
There are lots of example. But the fact is that in the private sector if an employee screws up the company looses money and the employee will most likely loose his/her job. In the public sector if an employee screws up ……………….. The Taxpayer pays.
All that ever happens is some kind of investigation that finds out that there was a “systems failure” which is code for saying that nobody in particular is to blame so we can’t fire anybody.
To answer the original question. I agree with the pensions levy. I would say it probably starts at too low a wage level (I think around €15k per year) I would have said it should have been less for the lower paid and more for the higher paid.
The public service employees / unions should stop complaining and think of their worker brothers / sisters in the private sector who have lost, or are loosing or will loose their jobs and have already conceded pay cuts of up to 25% and probably more in some cases. They should also thank their lucky stars for their private sector job.
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