April Budget (3 Viewers)

[pete]

I'm only 24 hours closer to retirement than I was yesterday you know..... !ninjaaaa

Yeah, me too.

...in those areas of the public service where permanent reductions need to be brought about, staff aged 50 or over may retire from the public service without actuarial reduction of pension entitlements they have accrued to date. Ten per cent of the relevant lump sum will be payable immediately with the balance paid later at the normal retirement age of 60 or 65 without actuarial reduction and subject to current tax law provisions.

I can't see very many people having enough of a pension entitlement built up by 50 to make this worthwhile. "Ten per cent of the relevant lump sum" is 15% of salary. That's not going to last for very much of the 10 years you'd be waiting for your pension.

edit: i know nothing about pensions.

 

[pete]

Free preschools seemed to have been mentioned by Lenihan on prime time, hopefully this'll make up for losing the childcare supplement.

1 year of it.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Miriam looks fecking great.

 

[Diddles]

we'll be worse off by this each month

€189 - extra child benefit [gone next year]
€116 - mortgage interest relief [going?]
€70 - increase income levy

plus if they means test the child benefit, that's another €332 gone.

Have to cut down on RAERs

We're fucked to a fair thee well also. I'm going to sign on this week but probably don't qualify for anything as I'm means tested on HMD's wages and any savings I have. It's fucking nuts that they include his wages for assesment for the dole but we have to be legally married before they will give him my tax free allowance.

I still don't understand the mortgage interest relief thing. I always thought that was only for seven years anyway, so was always expecting us to run out at some point. Did this change in the last couple of years? HMD bought a house six years ago then we both both a house two years ago so I'm not sure if this affects us immediately.

I always thought the children's allowance was sacrosanct. For many women, it is their sole independent income. It doesn't matter if a woman's spouse earns a million quid a week, it doesn't necessarily follow that she has access to that money. I think there will be a lot of desperate women in this country distraught over this.

Free preschools seemed to have been mentioned by Lenihan on prime time, hopefully this'll make up for losing the childcare supplement.

Is preschool not free anyway? We signed our baby up for the Ninra in the Gaelscoil and there was no mention of fees. Could I avail of a pre-pre school? In fact I'm sure he said 'pre-preschool'. And what's the point in promising us anything two or three years down the road when he can always renege on it.



And Pete:

Annex E: Special Civil Service Incentive Career Break Scheme and Shorter Working Year Scheme
Special Civil Service Incentive Career Break scheme
•
As a once off measure, under a Special Civil Service Incentive Career Break scheme, civil servants who take a career break for 3 years will be paid an incentive payment of 33% of gross pay to a maximum of €12,500 per year (for a person working full time, reduced pro rata for any person on reduced working hours).

Shorter Working Year scheme
•
In addition, the existing scheme permitting civil servants to take unpaid leave to balance their working arrangements with outside commitments, including the holidays of their children, (‘Term Time’) is being revised and will now be called the Shorter Working Year Scheme.

 

[Green Goblin]

What did they do to rent allowance

 

[Diddles]

And its an out and out disgrace that under 20s should have their dole cut. Someone over twenty can claim full benefits, even if they've never worked, while someone who's under twenty gets a hundred quid a week, even if they were paying full tax since they were sixteen or seventeen. Fucking outrageous shit altogether. Has to be unconstitutional.

 

[pete]

And Pete:

Annex E: Special Civil Service Incentive Career Break Scheme and Shorter Working Year Scheme
Special Civil Service Incentive Career Break scheme
•
As a once off measure, under a Special Civil Service Incentive Career Break scheme, civil servants who take a career break for 3 years will be paid an incentive payment of 33% of gross pay to a maximum of €12,500 per year (for a person working full time, reduced pro rata for any person on reduced working hours).

Shorter Working Year scheme
•
In addition, the existing scheme permitting civil servants to take unpaid leave to balance their working arrangements with outside commitments, including the holidays of their children, (‘Term Time’) is being revised and will now be called the Shorter Working Year Scheme.

hmmmmmmm 3 years is a loooong time, and there's no way in hell you'd get back early. I wonder what taxes / levies / deductions would come out of the 12 grand.

That term time scheme has always been pretty great, so if they're dropping the requirement to have a child of schoolgoing age...

 

[ann post]

hey guys. i know you might have to beat me up at the christmas party, but what do you think about people who applied for goverment jobs complaining about the governments handling of thier jobs??

 

[Reets]

I always thought the children's allowance was sacrosanct. For many women, it is their sole independent income. It doesn't matter if a woman's spouse earns a million quid a week, it doesn't necessarily follow that she has access to that money. I think there will be a lot of desperate women in this country distraught over this.

Is preschool not free anyway? We signed our baby up for the Ninra in the Gaelscoil and there was no mention of fees. Could I avail of a pre-pre school? In fact I'm sure he said 'pre-preschool'. And what's the point in promising us anything two or three years down the road when he can always renege on it.

There's a few men I know who've pissed most of their wages away before giving anything to their wife, the loss of children's allowance will be devastating to a lot of people.

I think you have to pay for pretty much any preschool or pre-preschool, it's normally 20-50euro per week.

 

[Umfufu]

At the risk of sounding 10 years younger than I am, is there anyone else who would actually run the country any better or different from the current government?

I've never voted for FF & have no intention of doing so but at the last election I had James O'Reilly (although it could have been Dave Lee Travis.......or a werewolf) on my doorstep telling me that Fine Gael were going to bring in free GP visits for under 5 year olds.
They also wanted a free yearly health check for everyone under 16.

I had to close the door on him before I spewed bile all over the street.

Bear in mind that this was at time when the 6% (IIRC) economic growth that these political promises were based on, was widly reported as being ridiculously optimistic.

I've also, more recently, seen political discussion on UK & US television & it's amazing how the media is saying the same thing everywhere.
They all think that their country is worse off than everyone else & they're all blaming their respective governments.

And then today, during the bullshit arguments before the budget speech had started, Ruairi Quinn stood up & asked some very reasonable questions & sat back down.
Then the Ceann Comhairle pointed out that, in spite of Quinns objections, that he was obliged to request that the speech go ahead.

THEN, Enda Poxy Kenny stood up & repeated Ruairi Quinn's last question!
Way to go Enda! Leading from behind as usual.

The only party who came out of the whole thing with any sense of maturity was Labour as Eamon Gilmore then stood up & said he thought they should just get on with the business at hand.

So basically, I'm left with Labour who realistically aren't going to be the main party in any government (although with the current economic gickstorm, it's more likely than it was at any recent election).
Which means, they'll probably go in with FG, who I wouldn't trust to manage a McDonald's let alone the public finances.

So now what?

(First person to suggest Sinn Fein gets knee-capped)

 

[Diddles]

That term time thing wasn't in place when I was in the PS.

I'm sure its not nice for you at the moment Pete, or for my brother and my two sisters-in-law currently working in the public service.

But for fuck's sake, the amount of these type of 'schemes' in the public service is crazy. Having a scheme that involves someone not working during the summer, when they are not in the teaching profession, is fucking bonkers.

Is there less work to be done during the summer?

When I worked in the public service, job sharing was a terrible strain on our department. There was a limited amount of work a job sharing worker could do as they were only there every second week. Even if someone job shared with them, there was a constant backlog of work as the alternating person had to catch up on the previous weeks work. It inevitably led to the lower paid, full-time staff doing higher end jobs for the sake of continuity, but none of them could sign off on anything as they weren't qualified to do so, causing even further delays. I cannot imagine what damage to productivity someone not working for an entire summer could cause.

 

[Raudi Raus Schinkel]

A person on the minimum wage is only 3 euro better off a week than a peron on the dole.

"Hmmm will I work in me shite job with no career prospects for 40 hours a week or will I draw the dole?"

That's a toughy.

That Government has to go, I hope ye are all registered to vote in the local elections.

 

[maims bond]

The halving of dole for under 20s is really severe i think. Obviously forcing people to move home (if they don't still live at home already).

Anyone know what the story is with the health levy? Is it part of one's PRSI payment? I've never seen it on a payslip or anything like that.

 

[Froog]

to be honest, i'm far more worried about keeping my job than paying 25c more for fags and paying a bit more tax.

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

The halving of dole for under 20s is really severe i think. Obviously forcing people to move home (if they don't still live at home already).

I think it only applies to new applicants.

 

[Raudi Raus Schinkel]

The halving of dole for under 20s is really severe i think. Obviously forcing people to move home (if they don't still live at home already).

Anyone know what the story is with the health levy? Is it part of one's PRSI payment? I've never seen it on a payslip or anything like that.

http://www.citizensinformationboard...publications_entitlements_oversixties3.html#7

 

[Pantone247]

At the risk of sounding 10 years younger than I am, is there anyone else who would actually run the country any better or different from the current government?

This is it really, isn't it... no one is coming up with anything better really. Things are bad and it's a painful budget to deal with it, you could slice and dice the cake whatever you like it, but this budget was never going to win people over. It wasn't meant too.

It's very easy to point the finger at Cowen and Lenihan but the seeds of this disaster were sown long ago by Ahern's goverenment and the culture they fostered, same party but a different league of bad bastards.

Also the of some sort of panel of Business people and economists, well the business people would fuck this country up royally for a few quid, they already have, Ireland still thrives on 'cute whoor' culture and there would people chomping at the bit to get on this panel and try and influence policy. I've no idea who the leading economists are, but I assume if they were any good we would have heard from them now

By all accounts it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better and there was plenty of point ahead for 2010 and 2011 to get even worse. The best chance out of this in a reasonably sane amount of time is to make this 'Toxic Bank' work and work very, very, well... not an easy thing to do in this country...

In saying all of that the taxation of minimum wage, chopping childrens allowence (imho the pre school thing is a joke) and cutting the dole for under 20's is a Very Bad Thing. Sinn Feinn, SWP, et al here are the disenfrachised voters you've been looking for...

 

[Diddles]

Apologies for the PS rant Pete, I'm a very bitter person

 

[magicbastarder]

At the risk of sounding 10 years younger than I am, is there anyone else who would actually run the country any better or different from the current government?

wind the clock back fifteen years to the rainbow coalition.

 

[JohnnyRaz]

winston churchill used to say that if he asked the opinion of the best 6 economists in Britain, he'd get 7 different answers on best way to do public finance

but on to to the budget, on this front, garret fitzgerald writing in the irish times a few weeks ago said that from his time in government, there were 17 economists in the department of finance, now they're are only 3 or so. this he believed was a reason for mismanaging of the economy before this.

in fairness, as decent and honourable a man as garret gitzgearld is, he tenure as taoiseach wont be remembered for brilliant economic initiatives