What should Labour do?

[anluabu2]

labour need to be central to the reform of the public sector, FG have plans to cut numbers to keep voters happy, it wont do anything change the system and how bad it is managed, public sector reform isnt about slashing numbers.
they need to identify the services that are needed to meet the needs of the public, the number of people needed to deliver these services and appoint the right people to those posts. It needs to be that radical!

otherwise the pen pushers and timewasters will all still be sitting in public sector in five years time, doing even less that they do now

[Maguire01]

I hope they dont. I want to see the public sector slashed.

Labour plans on 18,000 jobs going; FG says 30,000. Either way, it's going to get slashed.

[muppet]

labour need to be central to the reform of the public sector, FG have plans to cut numbers to keep voters happy, it wont do anything change the system and how bad it is managed, public sector reform isnt about slashing numbers.
they need to identify the services that are needed to meet the needs of the public, the number of people needed to deliver these services and appoint the right people to those posts. It needs to be that radical!

otherwise the pen pushers and timewasters will all still be sitting in public sector in five years time, doing even less that they do now

This is why FG will make big concessions to bring them on board. Labour will deal with the PS unions and there will be pain.

[anluabu2]

A real change will be these two working together for the benefit of the people of the country not for the benefit of their parties!

Call me a cynic but i dont hold out much hope

[Pangurban]

An unprincipled Party such as Labour will have no problems compromising, the only possible sticking point will be the divvying out of Ministries, but if get a few crumbs they will be happy, unlike the FG backbenchers who miss out on the largesse

[LeoMc]

labour need to be central to the reform of the public sector, FG have plans to cut numbers to keep voters happy, it wont do anything change the system and how bad it is managed, public sector reform isnt about slashing numbers.
they need to identify the services that are needed to meet the needs of the public, the number of people needed to deliver these services and appoint the right people to those posts. It needs to be that radical!

otherwise the pen pushers and timewasters will all still be sitting in public sector in five years time, doing even less that they do now

I read a columnist at the weekend, can't remember which paepr now who said that it could be cheaper for FG to do a couple of deals with independants than to bring Labour on board.
A few euro here and there for road upgrades / keeping a leisure center open or other local interest to buy off the independants could be a lot cheaper than bringing the Unions insidet the tent.

Does anyone know the left / right split among the 14 independants?

This is why FG will make big concessions to bring them on board. Labour will deal with the PS unions and there will be pain.

[seafoid]

http://www.businessandfinance.ie/bf/2011/3/commentanalysismarch2011/karlwhelanaftertheelectionreal

Karl Whelan: After the election, reality bites

Broken banks, unhappy European partners, distruntled trade unions and a government being pressurised to return to the bond market, the new administration has its work cut out, writes Karl Whelan

Given that Irish politics of the past few years have been dominated by economic events, one might have expected the election campaign to shed some useful light on our economic problems and perhaps raise some potential solutions. In truth, the public were rewarded with a campaign in which politicians from all sides by and large evaded the major issues that will face the next government. Three issues in particular that received very little attention in the campaign will dominate the next government's agenda. The first question is what to do in relation to the banking system. The EU/IMF plan for the Irish banks involved stress tests and recapitalisation and then shrinking the banks to bring the size of their loans books back in line with their deposit bases.

The ECB and the Irish Central Bank are now owed about €150 billion by the Irish banks. The ECB wants to get its money back and as soon as possible. Indeed, we are hearing rumours that the ECB is insisting that the Irish banks bundle together loans for sale to raise about €100 billion over a short period of time. While simple in theory, in practice this is likely to prove extremely difficult. Financial markets are extremely wary of having anything to do with the Irish banks. For example, a large book of Irish mortgages is not likely to raise anything close to its face value. Beyond the existing evidence of widespread loan arrears, potential purchasers will be concerned about future defaults as interest rates rise over the next few years.

In addition, the banks' large portfolios of tracker mortgages are not attractive as they pay interest rates that are below the cost of funds for most potential purchasers. A quick sale of large amounts of assets of this sort can only be done at a significant cost to the Irish State which is now the only provider of capital funds to these banks. How this situation gets resolved is unclear at this point. One possibility is that the ECB, and perhaps the wider European Union, are persuaded to accept having a longer-term involvement with the Irish banks than they would like. But such an outcome could come with strings attached that the government may not find attractive. For instance, those who feel that the government is in a strong position to default on the remaining senior bonds owed by Anglo and Irish Nationwide Building Society should keep in mind that there are wider and more important banking issues yet to be settled.

Which brings us to the next important issue that received no attention during the campaign: The size of the EU/IMF funding. Brian Cowen spent much of the period after the agreement of the EU/IMF deal claiming he had secured funding for three years to pay salaries for nurses, guards, teachers and so on. Unfortunately, once one factors in funds to repay maturing Irish Government bonds and to pay out on the promissory notes used to pay off creditors at Anglo and Irish Nationwide, the €50 billion provided by the EU/IMF turns out to only fund the State for about two years. Indeed, the European Commission has now admitted that the plan is for Ireland to return to the sovereign bond market in the second half of 2012. Unless a larger loan deal is negotiated, the new government is about to be put under as much pressure to please financial markets as the old one, with the December budget formulated with a swift return to the market in mind.The final issue that received little attention during the election is how the large savings on public expenditure (promised by all major parties) are going to be achieved. The government's approach of a freeze on hiring and offering redundancy packages has reduced public sector employment by about 12,000. Fine Gael have promised to achieve a further reduction of 30,000 but that these will all be in "back office administrative positions". This goal strikes me as unattainable. For comparison, the core administrative civil service only contains about 30,000 employees, so a reduction of this sort simply could not be achieved without eliminating front-line service jobs.
Indeed, it is hard to see how anything like the 30,000 figure can be achieved without ripping up the Croke Park deal and its commitment to ruling out involuntary redundancies. Many of the public sector employees who were likely to avail of redundancy packages have already gone. And if the government is to focus on particular areas of administration as the source of job cuts, then compulsory redundancies would seem inevitable.
This raises an obvious question. With unemployment already so high, if the Croke Park deal is to be ripped up, why not focus on a mix of job losses and wage cuts, so as to protect employment and front-line services? Unfortunately, any reneging on Croke Park is likely to be greeted by unions as the final straw. With little left to lose, the public sector unions may finally plunge the country into the kind of industrial strife that we have thus far managed to avoid.
Broken banks, unhappy European partners, disgruntled trade unions and a government being pressurised to return quickly to the bond market. These stories, rather than the flim-flam of election promises, are likely to be the focus of attention in the coming year.

[muppet]

http://www.businessandfinance.ie/bf/2011/3/commentanalysismarch2011/karlwhelanaftertheelectionreal

The ECB and the Irish Central Bank are now owed about €150 billion by the Irish banks. The ECB wants to get its money back and as soon as possible. Indeed, we are hearing rumours that the ECB is insisting that the Irish banks bundle together loans for sale to raise about €100 billion over a short period of time. While simple in theory, in practice this is likely to prove extremely difficult. Financial markets are extremely wary of having anything to do with the Irish banks. For example, a large book of Irish mortgages is not likely to raise anything close to its face value. Beyond the existing evidence of widespread loan arrears, potential purchasers will be concerned about future defaults as interest rates rise over the next few years.

This is what started the problem in the first place, was it not? They bundled sub-prime mortgages along with other mortgages into complex products like Credit Default Obligations. I wouldn't like to see these mortgages sold off to what could be debt management/collection agencies. There could be significant negative social consequences of having some desk in Wall Street decide what happens to thousands of house-owners in arrears in Ireland.

Better having someone who needs your vote responsible.

[seafoid]

Selling the books to a vulture fund would be a disaster, Muppet.

[Nally Stand]

So O'Snodaigh is rightly taking flack for his printing addiction, but I can't help but feel Ruairi Quinn must be sitting up in his office for the past couple of days laughing at how nobody cares that he has managed to:

• put in a claim for 2,800km mileage expenses for a month when he spent nine days at work. Around 1,800km more than his own diary would account for;
• and on another month claimed mileage expenses covering over 5,100km despite his his official diary during that month only justifying payment for about 884km in expenses.

A handy little bit of personal profiteering from the taxpayer. Does anybody care though?

[Rossfan]

You're doing your best to deflect attention away from Cartridgegate Nally ... but with little success as  the High Moral Ground is coming back to bite ye 

[Nally Stand]

Deflect attention? Not in the slightest. I have criticised him repeatedly and did so as recently as my post above. His actions were totally unjustifiable. I am merely amused that people who are so seemingly outraged over that are at the same time shockingly indifferent to news that the education minister has been heavily milking the expenses system for his own personal financial gain. Do people genuinely not give a fcuk or what? It just seems that people only get outraged over this sort of crap depending on what party is involved. With the level of corruption in the Dail over the years and given the state the country is in, this sort of shit should incite disgust no matter who or what party is involved.

[Tubberman]

Is there a report online or in any of the newspapers about this? The only place I've seen this Ruairí Quinn issue mentioned is on this board by you, Nally.

[Nally Stand]

The Mail on Sunday ran it as their lead story for the past two weeks.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103184/Ruairi-Quinns-mystery-mystery-1-400-mileage-claim-Minister-says-drove-5-100kms-diary-shows-1-000kms.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106567/Ruairi-Quinn-claims-2-800KM-9-days-work.html

[Rossfan]

Deflect attention? Not in the slightest. I have criticised him repeatedly and did so as recently as my post above. His actions were totally unjustifiable. I am merely amused that people who are so seemingly outraged over that are at the same time shockingly indifferent to news that the edycation minister has been heavily milking the expenses system for his own personal financial gain. Do people genuinely not give a fcuk or what? It just seems that people only get outraged over this sort of crap depending on what party is involved. With the level of corruption in the Dail over the years and given the state the country is in, this sort of shit should incite disgust no matter who or what party is involved.

I think you will find that in the eyes of most of  the Dublin media Labour , esp a D4 darling of the "Liberals" , can do no wrong.
Also I suspect Quinn was one of many ..... so there won't be any mock outrage among the other Parties as TDs in glass houses and all that...