The Budget Thread

[pete]

E200 charge for car parking will be interesting. Does the employer or the employee pay? We share spaces at work & have some unofficial spaces. Must be thousands of car parking spaces around the Stephens Green offices.

Still can't see any effort whatsoever to us the tax increases to indicate some sort of vision or direction. Tax increases do not solve recessions.

[Ringo]

E200 charge for car parking will be interesting. Does the employer or the employee pay? We share spaces at work & have some unofficial spaces. Must be thousands of car parking spaces around the Stephens Green offices.

Still can't see any effort whatsoever to us the tax increases to indicate some sort of vision or direction. Tax increases do not solve recessions.

I think its more aimed at the civil servants & Dublin City council etc.

i'd be more concerned about the 1/2 increase in VAT. This is basically on everything we buy. Its not getting as much publicity.

[McShels]

A quote from Lenihan yesterday; "It is no less than a call to patriotic action"

So builders, artists, the various multi millionaires aren't patriotic cos from what I can see they got it easy yesterday but then again thats FF looking after their friends again!!!!

[Reality Bites]

1.65 billion euros to bail out builders that got us into this mess! The stink of lobbying of this just turns my nose

[McShels]

Ok what we need now is something to cheer us up so its over to Trapattoni and the lads............

[Angus]

I am sure could find a good case to eliminate half those state agencies.

.

I completely agree - but if I could be confident that these people can translate this into money saving, I would praise this

Collapsing agencies means zero savings in headcount - it means shuffling the decks - theoretically it should mean a reduction in occupancy costs, consultatative costs, travel etc - but I have no faith in these people

Glorious chance missed, when everybody was expecting a harsh budget, he could have moderated tax increases but slashed spending - pathetic

[anto1208]

I got petrol yesterday before the ques got too mad ( 2 cars ) it was 116.9 by 8 the ques where out on to the roads blocking up everyone , came out of my house this morning and spotted apple selling petrol for 114.9 and not a car in the que !!!!


The tax on air travel only applies to "longer" flights. up to 300km is 2 euro tax over 300 is 10euro so that means if you are flying to the UK from Dublin its 2 euro any other airport gets hit with the 10 euro charge. which i think is very unfair.


Still there is one good thing to come out of this budget and thats the word qwango's !! ive never heard that before.

[OneRedArmy]

Still there is one good thing to come out of this budget and thats the word qwango's !! ive never heard that before.

Its QUANGO surely?

Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisations.

Popularised in the UK in the 90's.

[OneRedArmy]

E200 charge for car parking will be interesting. Does the employer or the employee pay? We share spaces at work & have some unofficial spaces. Must be thousands of car parking spaces around the Stephens Green offices.

Still can't see any effort whatsoever to us the tax increases to indicate some sort of vision or direction. Tax increases do not solve recessions.

Newstalk reckoned civil sevice could be exempt as parking is provided by the OPW, not the employer.

Unbelievable if true

[Dodge]

Newstalk reckoned civil sevice could be exempt as parking is provided by the OPW, not the employer.

Unbelievable if true

Probably won't be true. Private companies will just set up seperate companies to run their parking for them

While OPW do run the civil service car parks (in the same way they run all offices and buildings), all admin (allocation of spaces, collection of depsoits etc) is done by individual departments

[Lionel Ritchie]

The bottomless pits that are health and education - and before anybody responds - let's get one thing out of the way - there is mopre than enough money in health and education - the problem is waste, mismanagement, insufficient supervision and oversight by politicaians, and a desire to outsource responsibility.

...can I respond now? Consistently successful countries spend a bit more than twice per head what we allocate to education.

As for Health ...well I'm just guessing you don't have much call to visit hospitals. I'd suggest checking it's still there before you next venture to one though. ..and what's "Insufficient supervision?" ...sounds like you're calling for another one of these so-called "layers of beauracracy" there.

[Dodge]

The tax on air travel only applies to "longer" flights. up to 300km is 2 euro tax over 300 is 10euro so that means if you are flying to the UK from Dublin its 2 euro any other airport gets hit with the 10 euro charge. which i think is very unfair

not strickly true. Only some British airports

http://www.budget.gov.ie/2009/budgetsummary09.html

From Dublin to;
Blackpool; Cardiff; Glasgow; Glasgow (Prestwick); Isle of Man; Liverpool; Manchester;

From Cork to;
Newquay

From Donegal to;
Glasgow

Everything else is over 300kms. The only reason it was 300km was to make sure that flights to airports in NI were included as "short journeys" as they couldn't call them "irish airports"

[noby]

A reduced rate of excise duty, at 50% of the full appropriate excise duty rate for beer and cider, will be introduced for low alcohol beer and cider (beer and cider products with an alcohol by volume content of 2.8% or less), with effect from midnight on 14 October 2008.

Coincidentally, isn't Guinness mid-strength 2.8%?

[jmurphyc]

I didn't catch all of it, but it seems pretty gloomy alright. There's a lot of things in there that I don't agree with. The Government Registration fee for students is up to $1500. They may as well bring back fees the way that keeps jumping up each year.

[Lionel Ritchie]

I didn't catch all of it, but it seems pretty gloomy alright. There's a lot of things in there that I don't agree with. The Government Registration fee for students is up to $1500. They may as well bring back fees the way that keeps jumping up each year.

It's a mockery alright. Going back 15 years now my registration fees were about IR£280 if I'm remembering correctly.

[Angus]

...can I respond now? Consistently successful countries spend a bit more than twice per head what we allocate to education.

As for Health ...well I'm just guessing you don't have much call to visit hospitals. I'd suggest checking it's still there before you next venture to one though. ..and what's "Insufficient supervision?" ...sounds like you're calling for another one of these so-called "layers of beauracracy" there.

Yes, I have calmed down. I have regular occasion to visit hospitals (I have a minor asthmatic condition). I am also fortunate enough to have VHI (in the interests of full disclosure)

My point is that we have pumped billions into health without seeing a radical improvement in front line services - insufficient supervision refers to the fact that the politicians have decided that as there are no votes in this, they have tried to outsource the responsibility for managing the tonnes of resources they have - I have no interest in cutting anything on the front line - but I simply don't accept that the resources they have are satisfactorily managed

Everybody is to blame - pols, HSE, Health Boards, unions, consultants. Radical reform of the structure and practices is required - I am convinced that money alone cannot make the required dramatic improvements in front line services

[pete]

Car park charge will be applied to every person who uses the space not the space itself. This means if you use 1 day a week you get charged E200. How do they determine urban area?

Seems like the budget was designed to ensure civil service admin staff have jobs as there are so many schemes & means testing.

The Lenihan Levy does not seem any fairer today.

VAT increase will only encourage people to shop in NI & the Internet which means state loses the 21% they already had on those purchases.

I await the "Green" budget with unease.

[Dodge]

Seems like the budget was designed to ensure civil service admin staff have jobs as there are so many schemes & means testing.

Any chance of an explanation on this pete?

[OneRedArmy]

Any chance of an explanation on this pete?

The point I think he's making is that any means-tested system requires a lot more administration than a broad brush direct taxation measure and consequently this requires more civil service to administer and police the means testing.

Personally I don't think thats an intended goal, rather its an indirect consequence. But am still waiting to see how the civil service is going to share in the pain of the downturn in the way it got benchmarked to the private sector in the good times. There's surely room for a few thousand job reductions through natural wastage alone?

(on a semi-related theme see the Govt. slipped decentralisation "deferred" out in the middle of the budget news)

[Dodge]

How are the public service any better off with this than the private sector?

BTW for reference (not aimed at your ORA), here's the OECD report that suggests that the irish civil service is pretty lean by international standards (its a .pdf file)