Indo - "There is no cost of living crisis for majority of people in Ireland says IBEC CEO"

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m.independent.ie

Kerry business event hears there is no cost of living crisis for majority of people in Ireland

Killarney’s business community heard that the notion that there is a widespread cost of living crisis in Ireland is not true, and that only a small percentage of people are suffering.
m.independent.ie m.independent.ie
Maybe he's correct but the logic seems very odd...
“There are people suffering in our society but what proportion of them we can only speculate on,” [IBEC CEO] Mr McCoy said.

“It’s certainly not 50pc and I don’t believe it to be 20pc but I’m willing to leave it at 20pc which means 80pc don’t have a problem.”
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So, after some random speculation, he arrived at the figure of only 20% experiencing difficulties? Right you are so... :confused:
 
Call it a cost of living crisis or not, the fact is the middle class are getting squeezed.

That is not sustainable in a capitalist democratic system. It will end in division and tears, and a breakdown of society or government in some shape or form - always has.

The fact the middle is getting squeezed in one of the worlds wealthiest countries is really sad, and worrying for our children.

Government and major leaders in the country, like Danny, should be lobbying for some urgency.

It is an "I am alright Jack" type attitude. Perhaps FF and FG have been in his ear after his 2022 comments when the Irish times called him a social dem .
 
It depends on what you mean by a cost of living "crisis", doesn't it?

You could take the view that a rise in the cost of living is only a "crisis" if it risks tipping you into absolute poverty (for which you have to be pretty poor to begin with) or if it forces a major change in your financial situation that signficantly adversely affects your life (e.g. you default on your mortgage, or have to take your kids out of their fee-paying school). If those kind of things aren't happening to you then you may be experiencing costs of living "pressures" but you're not in "crisis".

You can defend that use of language in an abstract kind of way, but I don't think it's very realistic. People get angry, and they make their anger known, about cost-of-living issues long before they default on their mortgage or take their kids out of school. And once the issue has the potential to affect voting behaviour then so far as politicians are concerned it's a crisis.
 
For people on low fixed incomes, particularly those servicing debt as well, the increases in the cost of living in a serious issue.
For most people there income has risen faster than inflation over the last few years so there is not crisis for them. Therefore it makes sense to target any actions to amelioration their plight towards those who actually need it.
 
presidenttttt said:
Call it a cost of living crisis or not, the fact is the middle class are getting squeezed.

That is not sustainable in a capitalist democratic system. It will end in division and tears, and a breakdown of society or government in some shape or form - always has.
Click to expand...
Yep, wages are too low relative to capital. That means those who don't own a home are spending too much on rent and mortgage payments and there's not enough left for day to day expenses. High property prices also push up the cost of insurance and high rents push up the cost of goods and services. The solution is to deflate the price of housing. That certainly wouldn't be popular.
presidenttttt said:
The fact the middle is getting squeezed in one of the worlds wealthiest countries is really sad, and worrying for our children.
Click to expand...
Would you pay much higher property taxes? Would you be happy to see a shift in taxation away from labour and onto wealth? That's the only way it'll change.
 
Independent shouldn't be giving air time to such brainless speculation i.e. waffle.

Laughable in the context of this real piece of news from the same source - maybe that was the point from the Independent, to reveal him as a spoofer.

Food inflation is double the rate of general inflation, with many families being forced to stump up an additional €3,000 a year due to the rise in grocery prices... The prices of milk, beef, cheese, bread and other staples have soared. The fear is that they will continue rising after recent CSO figures found prices being paid to cattle farmers rose by 50pc in the year to April. The ICSMA said rising food prices are here to stay.

www.independent.ie

Shoppers warned days of cheap food over as families pay an extra €3,000 a year for groceries

A farming group has blamed politicians for the rising cost of produce, warning consumers that the days of “cheap food” are over.
www.independent.ie www.independent.ie
 
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I am not a fan of Danny McCoy, but is his overall point not valid?

Reading the media, one would think that everyone in Ireland was struggling. The media is not really interested in people who are not struggling.

But most people in Ireland are doing fine. Maybe worried about how their kids will afford to buy a house or worried about their retirement.

But while costs are high in this country, salaries are high and taxes are low. And social welfare payments are widely available and very high.

I don't know how many are struggling. 20% seems a fair guess.

And most of us struggle at some stage in our lives. So poverty stricken as students but well off in retirement.
 
According to this chart from the Health Insurance Authority, the number of people in Ireland covered by private health insurance has risen steadily over the past four years. You'd need to adjust these figures for growth in population over the same period, but it doesn't look like cost of living pressures have (yet) led to many people cancelling their health cover.

(It's possible, of course, that people are switching to cheaper plans that provide a lower level of cover. But it strikes me as unlikely that that is happening at scale at a time when the total numbers covered are increasing.)
 
Brendan Burgess said:
But while costs are high in this country, salaries are high and taxes are low. And social welfare payments are widely available and very high.
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Taxes are only low for the low paid with many paying no tax at all, they are high on the middle income earners , earning 50K a year because you are already in the high tax bracket unlike most of our contemporaries.
Also the high prices here relative to our contemporaries are effectively another tax. I saw a statistic where adjusted for purchasing power parity on after tax income, Ireland was way down the table in terms of the purchasing power of those relatively high incomes.
 
In other countries, taxes cover more things that here people have to pay out of pocket eg private health insurance, bin collections.
A rise in the cost of such services has a bigger impact here.

The cost of living crisis is not just on those on benefits etc, but it includes that but people on incomes not eligible for such schemes, seeing their living standards squeezed.

It shows how completely disconnected from reality the McCoys of the world are.

He has form for this, last year he was trying to spin that the cost of living crisis wasn't a crisis and whatever it was, it was over.
He tried to spin the same line about if only 10% or 20% are struggling is that a crisis?
And it was pointed out to him at the time by eg Austin Hughes, yes that is a crisis.

www.irishtimes.com

Is Ireland’s cost-of-living crisis over?

Inflation has fallen back to target, but prices remain much higher than three years ago
www.irishtimes.com www.irishtimes.com
 
Brendan Burgess said:
I am not a fan of Danny McCoy, but is his overall point not valid?
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In my original post I didn't dismiss the possibility that his key point was correct. But his logic is completely baffling...
“There are people suffering in our society but what proportion of them we can only speculate on,” [IBEC CEO] Mr McCoy said.

“It’s certainly not 50pc and I don’t believe it to be 20pc but I’m willing to leave it at 20pc which means 80pc don’t have a problem.”
Click to expand...
As is this with all due respect. ;)
Brendan Burgess said:
I don't know how many are struggling. 20% seems a fair guess.
Click to expand...
 
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The other point is that the Government rolled out expensive cost of living measures in Budgets, to mitigate the effects of the increases in the cost of living.
If there wasn't a cost of living crisis, why did they do that?

From the previously linked Irish Times article:
As part of the Economic and Social Research Institute’s appraisal of Budget 2025, the think tank’s Claire Keane said it was important to note that poverty rates would have increased “really, really substantially” without those interventions in the budget.
 
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