East Coast Radio – Public Service Attacking Democracy
Me and Peter Mullen (PRO of the INTO debating)
During the course of the interview, Peter Mullen falsely accused me of getting my facts wrong, as such after the programme I sent the following emails to East Coast Radio:
Declan
Further to the interview this morning, the chap from INTO alleged that I my statistics were incorrect, and I ended by saying I was correct and would provide evidence of such. Hence this email
Ronan Lyons, the independent and respected economist carried out a study of private vs public pay from 1998 to 2008 using CSO data, three key points from his research are:
- Lest we forget the most obvious, in every year of the series, public sector workers were paid more per year than their private sector counterparts*. 30% more on average! (There may be perfectly legitimate reasons for this, for example average experience/years worked may be higher, responsibilities may be greater… but a priori, who knows?)
- As you can see, the gap has widened, not narrowed over the decade. In fact, in euro terms, it widened 8 years out of 10! And after the two years of greater private sector increases (prizes for eyesight if you can spot them on the graph), there were huge increases in public sector pay the following year.
- Public sector pay is at least five years ahead of private sector pay. What public servants earned in 2003 took their private sector counterparts until 2008 to earn (in fact, they’re not even there yet, another €500 or so to go!).
The above is his own words, you can see the original research here: http://url.ie/5b2w
On the issue of teacher’s pay the INTO themselves said in April 2009 that the average female primary school teacher earned €56,000 per annum, and the average male €64,000. See http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0416/teachers.html
If you look at he OECD report in 2008, see http://url.ie/5b2z
It shows that in Ireland, a teacher in the job 15 years, single with no kids, earns more after tax than his or her counterparts do BEFORE they’ve been taxed in most other eurozone members.
In Ronan Lyons’ analyses (see http://url.ie/5b2u) he states that “they’re paid substantially more than their eurozone counterparts. Perhaps price levels are so substantially higher in the rip-off republic that teachers in Ireland need this extra pay just to break even? Unfortunately, eurostat figures on comparative price levels don’t back that assertion up. Whereas prices in Ireland are indeed 15% higher than in France, the single teacher above enjoys 75% more take-home pay. In Finland, prices are just 2% below Irish prices, but an Irish teacher enjoys a wage that is 54% higher than a Finnish counterpart.
Regarding working hours: See http://www.independent.ie/national-news/teachers-top-of-eu-pay-class-1840270.html, which reports on the Eurodicy report
Second-level teachers in Ireland are contracted for 735 hours of class contact time per year, compared to teachers in the Netherlands is 1,659 per year, while in the UK it is 1,265 hours per year.
Irish national school teachers work 1,037 hours per week
Ireland is one of only three countries where the teachers’ contract is defined in terms of teaching hours only, which means they are officially required to work only the stated hours
The ERSI in their report (see http://www.esri.ie/pdf/QEC1002SA_Nolan.pdf) and states “The rate of functional illiteracy among adults in Ireland … is the highest of any of the seventeen countries covered by that index, at 23 per cent.”
The above clearly proves I was not making up any of the statistics, and I would be grateful if you could mention this on air.
Thanks again
Stephen
————–
Further to my last email, Peter Mullen was very selective in his quoting of the IBEC survey, its full findings were
- more than half of companies (56%) have reduced their pay bill over the past 12 months, by an average of 21%;
- over half of companies have implemented pay freezes (59%) and staff reductions (55%) in 2009;
- recruitment freezes (59%) and retraining of existing staff (45%) are among the most likely actions by employers in the next three months;
- a reduction in the number of permanent staff is expected in 28% of companies and is under consideration in a further 42% of companies;
- for 2010, almost half of companies (48%) expect their pay bill to remain the same, while one third of companies (33%) expect it to decrease – the average decrease expected is 14%;
- a reduction in the number of temporary staff is expected in 32% of companies, with 29% of enterprises considering this option;
- short-time working is expected in 22% of companies, with a further 45% considering its implementation;
- some 31% of businesses intend to eliminate bonus payments, while a further 29% intend to reduce such payments.
To only pick the the point about pay freezes and to not mention the rest is totally dishonest, plus people on pay freezes are been asked to work harder and longer.
Also it should be remembered that IBEC tends to represent the larger employers
The SFA has reported that amongest its members management has taken 15% pay cuts, 10% for other staff. see http://url.ie/5b6n
Rgds
Stephen
P.S. Sorry for the lengthy emails, but I thought it important to show that I was the one who got my facts right! 🙂
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.