They produce a headline saying that average income in the PS rose in the last year, I don't care what method they used, it is a nonsense because incomes had their biggest one year fall in the history of the state. If they are not capable of reflecting that instead of producing deceptive headlines they are not fit to do their job.

I am sick of "experts" telling me why black is white.

The CSO produce reports, not headlines. What aspects of their reports others choose to highlight is not the concern of the CSO.

The Q2,Q3,Q4 private sector reports for 2009 will be of great interest and should be out soon. I'm sure if they show that private sector pay levels have not fallen you'll rekindle your love for the CSO,

Average weekly earnings up 3.2% in year to June 2009

this is the headline lifted from the top of the report, do you think PS wages went up in that year or do you think they went down?

Afaik the HSE unions are looking for a 3% pay increase!! Seems a long way from what you are insisting the private sector do, you know, when you said they have to "cut costs, wages, prices etc, they had to do it or die in times of deflation".

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Anyone for desert ?

That's exactly what thieyhave to do, the whole country needs to readjust not just PS workers. If all agree we have a chance, targeting one over another will not work.

Probably yes, it seems likely that the benchmarking process did actually look at job content - but seeing as the report wasn't made public, we can but speculate.


All nice and dandy, but they still have no information on job content, the work that people actually do.
I've never criticised the ESRI - I've just pointed out the gaping holes in their work. They have based all their public vs private analysis on a very superficial database that has no information about the actual work that people do.

Pity that you're falling into the 'public vs private - divide and conquer' trap set by Government.

You don't seem to know very much about how unions work. Jack doesn't order his members to do anything. The members order Jack (via their ballots).


Indeed, but they don't have to worry about little inconveniences like pension levies, recruitment bans or fixed salary scales.

The recent publication of wages by the CSO for Q1 2009 (certain industries) showed very little decreases of wages in the private sector and (surprise surprise) increases in some area. See The Irish Economy Blog Archive Where are the Wage Cuts? for an analysis of these figures, and see The Irish Economy Blog Archive Where are the Wage Cuts? for confirmation of this analysis by the high priest of the slash-and-cut brigade, Colm McCarthy himself.

and this will apply to all, I suppose knowing how fair you are!!!

Of course they dont

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Voters don't decide issues, they decide who will decide issues.

George Will

Why should union fees be tax deductible? Membership fees for political parties aren't, contribution to sports and social clubs at work aren't. This is inequitable and should be done away with.

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A little lesson on geographic and political terms for dummies :
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So the only circumstance in which the union leaders should limit would themselves to a mere 6 times the minimum wage, would be where all other high-earners in the economy jump first?

Sortta undermines their high moral ground when it comes to "afflicting the comfortable", no?