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Pension levy- whats your opinion
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GrahamB wrote:
Oh and some mentioned contractors in the public sector being let go. Well I know of at least twenty ( they work with me ) contractors who were stationed in government buildings that were let go. The government released them from contract and my employer could not afford to keep them on. They were not public sector employees they were private. In this particular instance that I have direct involvement in, the less qualified and better paid public sector employees are still in their jobs.
I mentioned people on contract and when I said that I wasn’t referring to private sector employees working on public sector contracts. I was referring to actual civic servants, employed directly by the state but not in permanent pensionable jobs. There are actually quite a lot of people working the public service who are on contract and whose employment is being terminated. In several County Councils, announcements were made that staff on contract would not have their contracts renewed when they expired. The same with teachers, remedial and substitute teachers, are often on part time or temporary contracts. There are a lot of health sector employees who would be on contract. These are the type of contract staff I was referring to.
There would be a lot of private contractors such as builders, electricians, and other services who would do a lot of work for the government and I’m know (I have no personal experience of it, but common sense would tell you) that a lot of these people will find the work drying up.
Here’s something for you to keep in mind (I shouldn’t really be saying this but I have done it myself)) but as you walk look through office windows and such places (Public and Private sector) and see how many places have water coolers and dispensers and then ask yourself ‘how far down the line has this recession filtered to the masses and who is looking at how they can contribute to saving costs?
We’ve all heard this somewhere – “Do I need it? Do I really need it? Do I really really need it?” and then ask “Would I buy it if I was using my own money?” I’m sure the first quote has something more to it, I just can’t remember what but it should be the mantra for everyone if they are spending some one else’s money!thedarkroom wrote:
Hey Robbie, are you trying to stir things up.
Moi? Heaven forbid!!
Such a thought :wink:
Expresbro wrote:
I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.
Mahatma GandhiWas that quote in the movie? I must have missed that one. Did he mean that they are a step above or need to be pulled down a peg or two and if that is the case what does that say of me as I teach photography to journalism students. I’m F£K&D !
Hehehe!! Old Gandhi had a wicked sense of humour by all accounts, so I suspect he made this quip to a roomful of journalists and photographers.
Then again… if he met some of todays crop of journalists he might well actually mean it ;-)
Thanks everyone for the comments. I was very interested to get the differing viewpoints
on this very controversial topic. I work in the PS and am shop stewert and Trustee of the local branch of SIPTU.
At a branch meeting last week they said there was a demonstration Sat 21st in the Bullring Wexford
and I said I’d start this thread to try to find the feelings of the public….I did. It appears to me that there is little or no support for the PS
and cut in wages (pension levy). That’s ok with me, and I take on board all the points that were made, and I genuinely sympathize with
anyone who is on short time, lost their jobs, made redundant or whatever. I know what it’s like too, I was unemployed in the mid 80’s
and having three small kids…well let’s just say it wasn’t easy.
As I said in an earlier post , my pension will very small when I retire, and it appears to me that some of the comments here were in a begrudgeing nature
because the PS have a pension fund. We all have choices in life and ten years ago I chose to apply for work in the PS, and now I’m being asked/told I have to take a pay-cut to help save the Country while the real culprits are getting away with daylight robbery. It’s money out of my pocket at the end of the day and if I can’t afford to pay my mortgage at the end of the month, what happens? There is the potential I could loose my house-God forbid.
Anyway I’m going to be in the Bullring on Saturday and I’m hoping for a good turn out in the hope that this pension levy shit will be done away with
and I can continue paying my mortgage, and if anyone begrudges me that… tough.lousy wrote:
At a branch meeting last week they said there was a demonstration Sat 21st in the Bullring Wexford
I’ll be at Parnell Square at 2pm Saturday. I much prefer the idea of demonstrating on my own time rather than a strike as proposed by some. I’m not sure what influence a day of demonstration will have but I definitely feel that a strike will be counter productive. I have never gone on strike in all of my 25 years in the public service and I don’t want to start now.
lousy wrote:
It appears to me that there is little or no support for the PS and cut in wages (pension levy). That’s ok with me, and I take on board all the points that were made
I’m not sure that I agree entirely. Perceptions have been coloured by government statements and the media on a continuous basis and I think there is an inadequate understanding of all the issues.
lousy wrote:
…. and it appears to me that some of the comments here were in a begrudgeing nature because the PS have a pension fund.
Again, I don’t agree entirely. There is certainly a lot of resentment against the inefficiencies in the public service which I think is understandable and justified and I think that the pension levy is a lash back due to this, again fed by the media and government spin.
lousy wrote:
…. to help save the Country while the real culprits are getting away with daylight robbery. It’s money out of my pocket at the end of the day and if I can’t afford to pay my mortgage at the end of the month, what happens? There is the potential I could loose my house-God forbid.
The real culprits will never be held fully accountable and will never be able to correct the wrongs that they have done and caused. The only alternative is for us to pick up the pieces. By ‘us’ I mean the working population in both private and public sector. We all have to be united on this.
I sympathize with you on the mortgage. I personally rescheduled mine three weeks ago because I was getting in to difficulties with a creeping overdraft and knew that if we didn’t do something then we would have serious problems with our mortgage. Our mortgage was due to finish in seven years so we rescheduled it to go for fifteen years to give us some breathing space with the reduced payments and then to have a bit extra to cover our son who wants to go to college in September. This new levy has wiped out completely the difference in our payments and we will be back to square one again. The only problem is that if we get in to difficulties again we no longer have any fallback. We cannot extend the mortgage again because it is limited to the date when I would have to retire. Our son will have to get a job (where???) if he wants to go to college.
I think it would be fair to say that everyone has their own ‘put upon’ story due to the current financial climate. The only one’s who don’t, I would suspect, are those who have us in this mess.lousy wrote:
Anyway I’m going to be in the Bullring on Saturday and I’m hoping for a good turn out in the hope that this pension levy ***** will be done away with and I can continue paying my mortgage, and if anyone begrudges me that… tough.
Good luck saturday. If I hadn’t already committed to Parnell Square then I’d be at the Bullring,
David
Remember – It’s not ‘Us & Them’, we workers are all in this together!
“now I’m being asked/told I have to take a pay-cut to help save the Country while the real culprits are getting away with daylight robbery. “
Not sure what you mean here lousy…..the ‘real culprits’ are the 100,000 people who have lost their jobs in the past year. There is some misquided notion that the reason for cutbacks is so that the banks can be bailed out. That is not the case at all. The reason for the cutbacks in public spending is because of the huge and rapid drop in income tax receipts in the government coffers, because so many people are losing their jobs.
Ask anyone who has lost their job recently, at SR Technics, at Waterford, at Sasha or elsewhere…..I don’t think they will feel they are getting away with daylight robbery. You can scapegoat Sean Fitzpatrick all you want, but if you think he’s the reason for your pension cut then you are misreading the situation.
On the subject of mortgages….so many people are going to default that there is no way the banks will try to reclaim houses (the defaulters being the 100,000 people who have lost their job, and the other 100,000 who will)….it would be pointless, it costs too much to repossess them and they wouldn’t be able to sell them anyway.
I do however agree that the Pension cut is inequitable and they should target higher earners within the PS more aggresively.
I’m curious to know what people think might happen to mortgage defaulters if it’s deemed pointless for the banks to repossess? This could lead to chaos.
Lousy,
I have sympathy for anyone who looses their house, whether they are public or private sector.
I seriously doubt you can get any other impression from reading the posts here.
I think people in the Public Sector are getting a reality check and it’s a hard one.
Where once Public Sector jobs were “jobs for life” and untouchable it has become clear
they are not. Where I think some resentment creeps in is the approach the PS takes to that
realization. When I was made redundant yesterday I knew there was nothing I could do.
I new it made sense, I knew the figures were right and I knew I was the logical choice to let go.
However when the PS hits this point what happens – strike action. The net result of which is very often only more
problems and disruption to the average joe.
Again, I feel for anyone who is going to face the prospect of loosing their home, really i do.I’d also like to thank everyone who posted on this subject. I’ve learned a lot about the PS, some good and some bad.
It’s is also morbidly comforting to know I am not the only who is freaking out about the future right now.nfl-fan wrote:
I’m curious to know what people think might happen to mortgage defaulters if it’s deemed pointless for the banks to repossess? This could lead to chaos.
Yeah I heard a few times people saying that they will give the keys of their house to the bank. Would they accept that?
I think its a very strange thing. Surely the banks would not get the same money back now, if they can sell at all. You still have to pay back.nfl-fan wrote:
I’m curious to know what people think might happen to mortgage defaulters if it’s deemed pointless for the banks to repossess? This could lead to chaos.
I do work for a leading debt collection agency in Dublin, I was talking to one of their financial guys as they have jsut invested
over 100,000 in their IT infrastructure. In his words ” business is booming” Go figureHow can a debt collector collect debt if someone doesn’t have the money to pay it?
And what power does a debt collector hold that a bank’s solicitors/legal team wouldn’t?
nfl-fan wrote:
I’m curious to know what people think might happen to mortgage defaulters if it’s deemed pointless for the banks to repossess? This could lead to chaos.
At the moment, not a whole lot. There was mention, in relation to the €7 Billion dig out, that there will be a 12 month fall back period where by banks won’t repossess during this period of a defaulting mortgage. The government were looking for 24 months but the banks said 12. I presume the first thing you would do, if you can’t reschedule, is to pay the interest only for a period to see how things go and as a final and extreme option only, default completely. At the end of the day, if they decide to repossess every defaulter then, as you said, there would be chaos.
I don’t want to be a pessimist but I would suspect that house prices would inevitably plummet even further and the developers, who are sitting on their wealth, would move in and buy up all the prime strategic locations. Here we go again…..Depressing!
David
nfl-fan wrote:
And what power does a debt collector hold that a bank’s solicitors/legal team wouldn’t?
Big muscular guys
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