Public Sector Pensions - One Giant Pyramid Scheme

[wexfordman]

No problem, it's the Payment of Wages Act. 1991.

Deductions are only permitted where they are required by statute or are subject to the agreement or consent of the employee.

Ahh, so an employer is not prohibited then, wage reductions can happen so!!, your post made it appear as if it could not happen when of course it is currently an every day occurrance!!

[Dunlin3]

Could you elaborate on that please Dunlin3, I don't understand your point.

What I am trying to say is that politicians do extermely well out of the public sector pension scheme as do the top third of public sector workers. They are quite happy to retain the status quo even though this county cannot afford such high pensions.

Pensions are supposed to be pensions, not salaries for life.

[Baron von Biffo]

Ahh, so an employer is not prohibited then, wage reductions can happen so!!, your post made it appear as if it could not happen when of course it is currently an every day occurrance!!

Hi Wexfordman, I try to be precise in what I write. What I wrote was correct.

Zakalwe1 made an observation about a legal prohibition on private companies, I made another.

A private company is also prohibited by law from conjuring up spurious deductions from staff pay to plug holes in the balance sheet.

No private company could have come up with a stunt like the pension levy and imposed it on staff without their consent.

[Baron von Biffo]

What I am trying to say is that politicians do extermely well out of the public sector pension scheme as do the top third of public sector workers. They are quite happy to retain the status quo even though this county cannot afford such high pensions.

Pensions are supposed to be pensions, not salaries for life.

Fair enough but that doesn't answer my question.

If, as we are repeatedly told, the PS pension scheme is extremely generous and provides gold-plated pensions surely all PS workers would decline a chance to opt out.

I suggest to you that, apart from politicians and judges, all rational public sector workers would jump at the chance to get out of the PS pension scheme.

[breiffni o rourke]

i see the debate is good, but what the ps must remember and the ambulance driver on pat kenny last night was wronmg about is ,ps workers do NOT contribute taxes to the exchequer, in any form ,you see a fine example is if i have a 5r in my left pocket and i put it in my right pocket i still have a 5r.
you cannot pay taxes if your wages come from the public purse in the first place, there is no outside private contribution from your salary.
the public finances are paid by the private sector, end of. ok, and if the private sector cannot pay these taxes they have to be borrowed like whats happening now, until the private sector picks itself up and gets growth going again.
however im not dissing the public sector and i admire the likes of the ambulance driver last night on pat kennys show last night sticking up for himself, they are low paid servants, with a moderate pension, however the likes of roddy badly stuck molloy and brian gambler lenehan, are the cause of this pyramid scheme in the public sector pension with there200k a year salary, and 1.4 million pay off deal and a huge pension and probably a state car for life. that is whats causing the pyramid, not the bus,ambulance drivers or the nurses or teachers, and its about time we the people joined together and put a stop to the pyramid that is the higher paid public servants, and politicians, it cannot go on ,we can only borrow 400,000,000 a week for so long then it turns into 500,000,000 a week , how could any country ever pay that back, just to fund the higher paid public servants and their pension.


my own opinion is to move in on the higher paid public se3rvants say over 60k per year with p45s all round and no redundancy, we are bust so redundancy isnt an option, and leave the front line ps workers alone, look at the poor girl last night who was evicted from her home 4 weeks ago, she doesnt need a pay cut, but willie o dea does and so does david begg

[zakalwe1]

A private company is also prohibited by law from conjuring up spurious deductions from staff pay to plug holes in the balance sheet.

partially true...

and its not the salaries that is causing public ire but the expenses and pensions...both of which are not covered by that act.

in fact, expenses should be cut for all unvouched non pre-approved expenses. furthermore BIK at the marginal rate should be applied to all flights above economy, all hotels above 3 star, all car hire above taxi-hire for the distances (not time) involved.

the feckers with their snouts in the trough are not the ambulance drivers, nurses or firemen but the general secretaries and politicians.

[Baron von Biffo]

partially true...

No, that's 100% true. Private sector employers are legally prohibited from making any deduction from wages that's not either required by statute or has the agreement or consent of the employee.

and its not the salaries that is causing public ire but the expenses and pensions...both of which are not covered by that act.

in fact, expenses should be cut for all unvouched non pre-approved expenses. furthermore BIK at the marginal rate should be applied to all flights above economy, all hotels above 3 star, all car hire above taxi-hire for the distances (not time) involved.

John O'Donoghue and Roddy Molloy are not typical public servants. Most incur no expenses at all. For those that do, unvouched expenses such as mileage and subsistence have already been cut this year by, I think 25% (I'm open to correction on that figure.)

As for the pensions, I keep asking a very simple question but I've yet to get an answer. If PS pensions are so expensive why doesn't the state offer public servants the chance to opt out of the scheme?

Surely the government can't lose from such an offer. If no one takes it up it will still have just the same costs as before. If the offer is taken up there will be substantial savings to the exchequer.

Perhaps you can shed some light on the government's stubborn refusal to entertain a proposition with huge potential benefits and no down side.

the feckers with their snouts in the trough are not the ambulance drivers, nurses or firemen but the general secretaries and politicians.

Politicians and Judges undoubtedly get more from their pension than they pay in. Whether or not that applies to other grades (including secretaries general,) I can't say definitively but I suspect not. It's certainly not the case at the bottom.

PS salary scales are in the public domain as are their pension entitlements. Some time you have nothing better to do you could pick a few and calculate how much better/worse off they would be if they had a choice of the PS pension or making their own pension by putting all their non-PRSI pension contributions into Post Office savings over their careers.

The result might surprise you.

[wexfordman]

Hi Wexfordman, I try to be precise in what I write. What I wrote was correct.

Zakalwe1 made an observation about a legal prohibition on private companies, I made another.

A private company is also prohibited by law from conjuring up spurious deductions from staff pay to plug holes in the balance sheet.

No private company could have come up with a stunt like the pension levy and imposed it on staff without their consent.

ok, the point i was getting at is that employers are currently doing it, and the so called "agreement" with employees is more likely to be along the lines of cant afford it lads, its this or no job!! Now public sector is and should be no different, no excuse!! Its happening every day to friends and colleagues, so why ps so special ?

[Baron von Biffo]

ok, the point i was getting at is that employers are currently doing it, and the so called "agreement" with employees is more likely to be along the lines of cant afford it lads, its this or no job!! Now public sector is and should be no different, no excuse!! Its happening every day to friends and colleagues, so why ps so special ?

It's tragic to see workers attacking other workers because they believe propaganda from the likes if IBEC and INM.

We should be treating all workers with dignity and fairness.

We should be using all our energies to remove the crooks and chancers from the top the political and business heap so that when the recovery comes it benefits us all not just the well connected.

[wexfordman]

It's tragic to see workers attacking other workers because they believe propaganda from the likes if IBEC and INM.

We should be treating all workers with dignity and fairness.

We should be using all our energies to remove the crooks and chancers from the top the political and business heap so that when the recovery comes it benefits us all not just the well connected.

How is what I said an attack ? Is it an attack to be realistic ? Is it an attack to question where your taxes are going, specifically in a time where tax revenues are down, and we see today one grouping see themselves COMPLETELY immune to basic economics and DEMAND that we pay MORE tax so they can get a friggin pay rise when hundreds of thousand of their "fellow" workers are being forced out of jobs.

45,000 of them decided to launch an attack today!!
Now thats workers attacking workers!!

Get real ffs!!