An Bord Snip - IT report

[Kf]

The Irish Times reports that the An Bord Snip Nua (god I so hate that name) report is going to recommend the following highlights to save money.

A merger of some local authorities. Including the Cork, Waterford, Galway and Limerick Cities being merged into the County Structures. But keeping with all four Dublin. Also recommends Town Councils to be abolished. This won't happen in the lifetime of the Local Govt term and I imagine never. Even if it happened tommorow savings wouldn't be seen for years as surplus staff would have to paid redundancy and expensive management consultants who have to be brought in to assist with the organisational mergers.

It also recommends 17,000 job cuts in the Public Service. Again this won't save money in the immediate for the reasons above. And would cause enormous industrial relations problems thorughout the entire country.

At a time when we need to encourage entreprenurial efforts it recommends merging the County/City Enterprise Boards, who are very lightly funded, into Enterprise Ireland. Another daft idea that actaully may save a few euros in the short term but will be counterproductive in the medium.

Another predictable idea is to slash social welfare.

What were these peoples Terms of Reference. Was there something that said "the Board will devise recommendations that are impractical, costly, familiar, counter productive, lazy and target the poorest"

I've two easy recommendations to save money almost immediately. One is scrap all state funding for private schools, saving 100 million and the other is instruct doctors to only prescribe generic drugs to patients, saving about 600 million.

But of course this being Ireland we couldn't possibly do something that may upset the middle classes.

[crocked]

But of course this being Ireland we couldn't possibly do something that may upset the middle classes.

There are no more middle classes, in ireland. There are in countries who have poor people. Fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be for ireland, we essentially have only 2 classes. The rich, and everyone else.

We educated our young, raised our minimum wage and are losing our jobs.

Because big business's want to make more money and they can do that by spending less on wages in countries where there are poor people.

Example: Dell has relocated there production lines from limerick to lodz, not because the limerick facility was losing money. Oh no, the limerick facility was making millions of dollars a year for Dell, but hey they thought "it's not enough, we want more money. to hell with ireland, we're off".

There will be poor people in ireland again, and it's because we accept that what Dell did and many others will do, is ok...

It is not OK!!!

[patslatt]

The Irish Times reports that the An Bord Snip Nua (god I so hate that name) report is going to recommend the following highlights to save money.

A merger of some local authorities. Including the Cork, Waterford, Galway and Limerick Cities being merged into the County Structures. But keeping with all four Dublin. Also recommends Town Councils to be abolished. This won't happen in the lifetime of the Local Govt term and I imagine never. Even if it happened tommorow savings wouldn't be seen for years as surplus staff would have to paid redundancy and expensive management consultants who have to be brought in to assist with the organisational mergers.

It also recommends 17,000 job cuts in the Public Service. Again this won't save money in the immediate for the reasons above. And would cause enormous industrial relations problems thorughout the entire country.

At a time when we need to encourage entreprenurial efforts it recommends merging the County/City Enterprise Boards, who are very lightly funded, into Enterprise Ireland. Another daft idea that actaully may save a few euros in the short term but will be counterproductive in the medium.

Another predictable idea is to slash social welfare.

What were these peoples Terms of Reference. Was there something that said "the Board will devise recommendations that are impractical, costly, familiar, counter productive, lazy and target the poorest"

I've two easy recommendations to save money almost immediately. One is scrap all state funding for private schools, saving 100 million and the other is instruct doctors to only prescribe generic drugs to patients, saving about 600 million.

But of course this being Ireland we couldn't possibly do something that may upset the middle classes.

The blindingly obvious snip is a 20 to 30% cut in public sector pay,some of it achieved through compulsory,fully taxed redundancies of deadwood. Without a tax,redundancies would be too expensive.

As for cutting private school budgets,a good rule in the international education field which is plagued by fads is, if it ain't broke,don't fix it. The Irish school system ranks highly in international OECD comparisons in the PISA surveys. And so it should,given that Irish teachers are the highest paid globally.

[FakeViking]

The fact that this govt (which includes 30 odd of the highest paid ministers on the planet, each with a large team of advisers and PR spinners) need a report like this to tell them where to cut costs proves their incompetence. We can all see where their is gross waste in the PS, most of the people employed therein can identify it, yet the good-time-Charlies in power have had it so easy for so long they can't change their habits now. The fact that Cullen (why do we need a Minister for Waterford anyway) can order helicopters to fly him off to meaningless meetings and it only becomes public knowledge when the aircraft is damaged by one of the passengers shows just how wasteful these boom time kids are, not what we need during a recession!

[redneck]

I would like to see less help given to the bloodstock industry and more help and support given to the Irish culture.Here are some bodies that need to be trimmed:
dept of envirnoment heritage and local govt. (could'nt save tara)
Dept of Taoiseach (what does this do)
Dept of social and family affairs (what right does this have to interfere in families)
Independent Newspapers (Why are they given so much taxpayers money?)
I would like to see more investment in
Education and Science
Gaeilge
North/South relations
Litter wardens
White collar crime by Garda

[jake76]

Example: Dell has relocated there production lines from limerick to lodz, not because the limerick facility was losing money. Oh no, the limerick facility was making millions of dollars a year for Dell, but hey they thought "it's not enough, we want more money. to hell with ireland, we're off".

If Dell were an Irish company you'd might have a point.

[crocked]

If Dell were an Irish company you'd might have a point.

are you saying no irish companies have moved there production abroad? it has happened... the example of Dell was to make the point: "even when a company is profitable, they will still look to make more money" and they never consider the people who's lives they disrupt.

why are we still trying to persuade ourselves that we need to fix the system???

what we really need is a new system, which is fairer for everyone.

to put it simply: how can you justify the billons of euro's in profits that companies make, and have so many starving people in the world???