Their millionaire pensions and retirement pots which were largely made up of bank shares?
Politicians: "Supermarkets should not charge customers for their shopping for 6 months"
- Thread starter Brendan Burgess
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Their millionaire pensions and retirement pots which were largely made up of bank shares?
Good point!!
Allpartied
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Pensions of publc servants were reduced in 2009 by a significant percentage. Reducing someone's pension, in real terms, is a very drastic step. Retirees have little scope to increase their income and are dependent on the fixed income they receive via the pension.
If you want to put a 40k limit on PS pensions you won't get much resistance from public sector employees. The vast majority ( around 98%) get pensions well below the 40k pa mark and the average is well below that figure.
The fact is that the Banks are not state owned and they are subject to the wonders of the free market. They ran their businesses into the ground and yet they face no consequences. So let's just nationalise them and run them as servants of our economy, rather than terrifying masters. Then the big shots can get the same millionaire benefits as civil servants.
In fact, going back to the original thread, yes the supermarkets should have provided food at cost price.
This was a national emergency, on a par with a war, where the consequences were unknown, but could have been catastrophic.
All essential services should have been, temporarily, nationalized and food, energy, housing, provided at cost price, with no profiteering, until the situation stabilized.
Hopefully, when the bill comes to be paid, it will be those companies that saw massive increases in profits, who get the biggest tab.
Retirees are the richest demographic, with the highest net assets and the highest disposable and are the demographic least at risk of living in poverty (children are much more likely to live in poverty). Pensions of retired Public Servants were not reduced at all in 2009. Young public servants were screwed by their Unions to protect retired and older public servants.
You do know that is a pension fund worth over a million, right?
AIB is State owned, just not State run. The State has an appalling record for running businesses. The last thing the citizens of this country need is State run businesses. Look at the things the State does run like Healthcare. Do you really want more of that Unionised waste and incompetence?
Ah sweet Jasus, a war?!
Take a look at Libya and Syria. They are wars. The Congolese Civil war in the 90's (the biggest war since the second world war); that was a war.
Calling 1600 people dying over a 3 month period, many of whom were going to die during that time anyway, is sad but it's not a war.
A war is when you are shot or blown up or lose everything you have and end up in a refugee camp and watch your children die from Cholera. Being told you have to queue for the shops and not go to the pub, and stay home and watch Netflix... no, that's not a war.
A war... that's just the sort of ill informed hyperbole that would see the economy collapse and billions more in debt flosted onto our children. The last thing we need is the Venezuelan solution of borrowing and nationalising. .
Allpartied
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I won't bother going down rabbit hole of Public Sector pensions, or Venezueala or Stalin's gulags, or whatever other nonsense people come up with when modest or necessary state intervention is required to stabilise an economy during an emergency, but just one thing.
You may have passed the lockdown in quiet contemplation, baking sour dough, or reading Proust, but there is a war going on.
1800 people have died, thousands more have been hospitalised, fighting for their lives in Intensive Care units around the country. If the lockdown had not come, then many more would have died. The ICU's were full in late March/eary April. If the numbers had continued to roll into the hospitals, then the crisis would have been completely overwhelming.
Maybe, we get lucky this time and the virus becomes less virulent, or less infectious, maybe not, maybe it gets worse. But there is going to be a pandemic, at some point in the future, which could overwhelm our economy, society and health services. We need to be ready, and relying on the free market is not going to cut it.
Purple,
pensions in payment were reduced, it's known as the PSPR, not well known.
www.gov.ie
Pension conts were also increased, known as the PRD.
pensions in payment were reduced, it's known as the PSPR, not well known.
Public Service Pension Reduction (PSPR)
www.gov.ie
Pension conts were also increased, known as the PRD.
Thanks, I wasn't aware of that.Purple,
pensions in payment were reduced, it's known as the PSPR, not well known.
Public Service Pension Reduction (PSPR)
Pension conts were also increased, known as the PRD.
Describing things as wars (war of drugs, war on poverty etc) is just silly. This is a public health emergency. It is not a war. About 31,000 people die in this country every year. That means since mid March about 10,300 people would have died in this country anyway. The total number is up by a little over 10%.
There may well be another pandemic, maybe even within the next few decades. If we want to reduce the likelihood of that happening then we have to address the causes of zoonotic transmission of diseases from animals to humans and the number one cause of that is habitat destruction.
The ICU numbers don't mean a whole lot; ICU's are usually quite ull and it's relatively easy to set up more of them. Though getting the correctly trained staff can be more of an issue but more money solves all staff relates problems in healthcare.
Who is suggesting that we rely on the free market to handle public health issues? We are one of the most socialist countries in the world so what makes you think there would be support for that?
Allpartied
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Many hospital nurses were being retrained, or refreshed in the management of ventilated patients, or emergency oxygen delivery.
Theatre nurses, or Endoscopy nurses, were first up, and many others volunteered to take on the role, should they be needed.
They didn't ask for any extra money.
Many teachers were willing to work over the summer but their Union put a stop to that. Wait until the dust settles and as sure as god made little apples their Unions will all be looking for a pay rise for the Heroes.
The care assistants, the food services people, the cleaners and porters and all the other people working in hospitals and care homes are facing the same risks as nurses and doctors.
Where I work people learn new skills all the time without looking for pay increases. It's just part of the job.
losttheplot
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Where I work you learn new skills so you're still relevant and employable and less likely to be redundant.
Allpartied
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Maybe you should join a union.
Why? I am interested in fairness and the low paid not being screwed over to protect the high paid so I could never join a Union.
Allpartied
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You don't promote fairness and improve low pay, by dragging down the reasonably well paid. You do it, by increasing the wealth of the low paid, and reducing the mountain of wealth at the top.
Unions, closed shops, collective bargaining, that's how you do it.
Welcome to the struggle, comrade.
No, that's how you close businesses and ruin people's futures. If you want people to be better paid then you train them so that they are more skilled and their labour is worth more. The movement of capital to the developing world over the last 30 years has lifted 4 billion people out of abject poverty. My concern for poor people stretched beyond my national border and people who look like me.
Of course multinational corporations and their owners should pay way more tax but in Ireland "the rich", people who earn very high wages, are already paying massive amounts of tax and carrying the rest of us.
Unions protect the haves from the have-nots and encourage waste and low standards. They encourage protectionism and trade barriers which cause untold suffering around the world. At home they bully and coerce people into submission who have the temerity to speak their own mind.
The Unions in the health sector are the reason people die on trolleys etc. Their leaders have blood on their hands.
They are despicable contemptible self serving parasites, a cancer on Irish society so no, I wouldn't join a Union.
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Simple example
Look at where the biggest problems are in Ireland. Healthcare and teaching.
Look where unions are strongest amongst the workforce. Healthcare and teaching.
And if you are a member of a union, have a look at the complete pay, pension and expenses packages of the senior members in charge. (paid by your dues) Many a senior banker would be jealous.
Look at where the biggest problems are in Ireland. Healthcare and teaching.
Look where unions are strongest amongst the workforce. Healthcare and teaching.
And if you are a member of a union, have a look at the complete pay, pension and expenses packages of the senior members in charge. (paid by your dues) Many a senior banker would be jealous.
Well @peemac you can't be accused of detailed and considered analysis. Where did you get the idea that the biggest problems in Ireland are in teaching? Last time I checked, the Irish education system was one of the best-performing internationally. As the saying goes, "some people would love to have your problems".
When was the last time you checked?
We rank highly in reading literacy, fourth in the OECD, but are very much mid table in science and mathematics in OECD (17th of 72) and EU rankings (11th of 28).
We are average across the board in outcomes but have better participation rates among lower socioeconomic groups.
We have well paid teachers; average salary for a teacher with 15 years experience is around €61,000 plus their pension so a package worth around €85,000 (more than 20% above the OECD average, PPP adjusted) with long school days but long holidays and generally okay outcomes but nothing to celebrate about. Compared to the Northern European countries we like to think we are like we rank quite badly. The notion that we have a world class education system doesn't stand up to even the most cursory scrutiny.
This is a good read on the subject.
Back on topic; Why should any business provide their services for nothing? Mortgage holders are generally better off than average, although younger mortgage holders probably have less disposable income and a lower standard of living than many people in social housing, so why should a business fund the social responsibility to subsidise their mortgage payments? This is like the idea that private landlords should fund the States responsibility to house people.
In terms on industrial relations. Seems every year ASTI have a vote for a strike for some reason or other and nearly always just as exams are commencing
Quality of teaching, just like the quality of healthcare is excellent. Pity the unions cause so much strife.