Private sector workers paying €8 billion annually for public sector pensions

[Jurisprudence]

Can I just ask some simple questions as I feel this thread is starting to stagnate (no offence I'm a part of it)

1) Silvio Dante: Can you please tell us what you do more exactly. Nobody here is trying to hunt you down but unless people know they cannot make a valid honest comparison. It appears that you don't want to say because you dont want them to make an honest comparison.

2) hopi watcher: If decreasing wage rates is only a small part what is the larger. What in your honest opinion needs to be done. If wage linked pensions from the current era do come to be drawn down do you think the state can withstand it, if so how with borrowing of €400m per week, and how will that effect its ability to fund public services as a whole which is the underlying reason for the existence of the PS itself. My feeling is getting rid of frontline staff to pay someones drawn down pension if false economy at best and suicidal at worst.

3) Kevin Doyle: If DB pension schemes are the norm in continental Europe (I don't know as I've said before) how can they be brought in to Ireland en masse having consideration to the fact that the private sector is in a downward spiral never before dreamt of. Would there introduction before full recovery (poss not till 2015 or maybe longer) not be too much of a burden for private employers on the small to medium scale considering their desperately uncompetitive position v china + E.Europe for instance) and potentially drive international MNC investment away from us, either leaving or not coming in the 1st place with the fear of additional barriers re pensioning schemes.

4) Open question: In a nation (actually across Europe) of overall increasing age how can we sustain, or can we at all, healthy pension schemes (not even PS ones but overall) when the current working demographic will inevitably grow smaller and smaller with each passing year therefore leading to less tax revenue to fund those continuing pension payouts in conjunction with the additional requirement to divert higher and higher percentages of that dwindling tax intake to take care of the elderly (they having larger health needs as a demographic). The future looks bleak irrespective of PS v private arguments.

[hopi watcher]

[QUOTE=Jurisprudence;1905344]

2) hopi watcher: If decreasing wage rates is only a small part what is the larger.

QUOTE]

Productivity.