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An Bord Snip Summary (3pm)
Read more about: Ireland 
Take this all as unconfirmed confirmations – we’ll be updating, correcting and adding context as we go through the report. Assume responsibility for Coillte
Public Service;
Pay cuts, cuts in pensions specifically accelerated pensions which gardaí and judges are on. Raise pension qualification age (unconfirmed whether or not this relates to private sector also).
Examine how public servants contribute to pensions.
“Notes: its clear that all services cannot be provided at the current level with these cuts”.
Several offices staffed by public servants should be out-sourced.
Rural Garda stations should be merged.
Communications, Energy and Natural Resources
The Group is recommending a reduction of €22.1m current expenditure and €43.5m in capital expenditure. A further once-off reduction of €125m in capital expenditure. Transfer responsibility for Inland Fisheries to dept of environment. Defer roll-out of MANs (Metropolitan Area Networks). The Digital Hub is to be merged with IDA/Enterprise Ireland. ComReg and Broadcasting Authority of Ireland to be merged. Reduction of 16 staff. TG4 to begin to be partly funded by TV license. Energy efficiency schemes should only be funded in the future if the cost of achieving the reduction in carbon output is equal to or less than the market price for carbon credits.
Social Welfare
All social welfare payments should be narrowed down to one-payment-per-person
Cut social welfare payments by 5%
Cut child benefit by 20%
Close the Department of Communities, Rural and Gaelteacht Affairs.
Decrease the scope of dept of sport, arts and tourism to the level that it is arguably useless.
Agriculture
Lose 1140 of jobs from dept.
Cut REPS by 30%
Suclor cows system terminated.
Subsume Bord Iascairgh Mhara and Bord Bia into dept
Health
10% cut in the numbers of jobs in the department of health.
6000 jobs to go from the HSE
Compulsory re-deployment of HSE staff
Medical cards are impacted, how so is unconfirmed.
Make people on medical cards pay €5 per subscription
Enterprise
Amalgamate the county enterprise boards
Avoid implementing jobs subsidy schemes – be wary of proliferations of community partnership schemes and MABS type groups as the are a money pit.
End Skillsnet and FÁS services to businesses
Education
Loose 7000 jobs
Decrease the number of special needs teachers by 2000
Increase third-level teaching hours
Increase the parents contribution to the school transport scheme from €300 to €500. Make the system means tested.
Re-introduce third-level payments.
Local Government
Long-term ambition to make local authorities self-financing.
Foreign Affairs
Reduce the number of embassies from 55 to 35
Cut overseas aid by €14.8m
Transport
End development of the western rail link
Others:
€100m cut in Science Innovation and Technology.
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Immediate feeling:
The West is hit badly, rural TDs will flip. Lower-middle classes take the brunt.
WTF! “€100m cut in Science Innovation and Technology.” To hell with the Smart Economy then.
Cuts in education and science/technology! This is ridiculous. It’s good to know that not only will we suffer now, it’s only going to get worse.
Also, spelling check – coillte and losing.
Eoin, not only is the smart economy but also the old economy.
The national suckler herd is one of the strong points of our agri sector the suckler payent was a key tool in improving its quality.
Now its going!
REPS is closed to newcomers!
REPS cut by 30%!
But privatise Coilite is interesting. Largest landowner in the state to be privatised at a time of collapsed prices. i’d like to follow that particular debate closely.
FF/Greens/PDs have delivered a burning brown papr bag to the door of the West,the Lower-middle classes, the farmers, education and just about everyone else. McCarthy is an idiot to front this. Let the second secretary general from finance who is his equal be the bastard.
or maybe its harder than whats required so that the Brian and the boyos can prove how they care for the ordinary people.
It seems that though health and education were are where most money is being cut, in relative terms other depts were hit much harder.
http://www.ronanlyons.com/2009/07/16/an-bord-snip-who-is-paying-most/
Question: in education seems no mention of abolishing fees?
My draft list of the mergers recommendations (note some were announced in budget so old news):
Merge the Railway Procurement Agency and the National Roads Authority
Merge the National Vehicle and Driver File (NVDF) into the Road Safety Authority
Merge the Valuation Office and the Ordnance Survey of Ireland (OSI) with the Property Registration Authority (PRA)
Merge the Valuation Office and the Ordnance Survey of Ireland (OSI) with the Property Registration Authority (PRA)
Amalgamation of the Data Protection Commissioner into the Ombudsman Commission and the merger of Property Service Regulatory Authority with the Private Residential Tenancies Board and the transfer of the functions of the IFCO into the BAI.
Transfer the functions of the Irish Film Classification Office into the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (BAI)
Merge the Property Services Regulatory Authority with the Private Residential Tenancies Board
Merge the Health Research Board within the single stream of science funding
Merge the Ombudsman for Children with the Office of the Ombudsman
Potential to merge the Office of the Commission for Public Service Appointments with the Office of the Ombudsman
Merge the Local Government Audit Service within the aegis of the C&AG
Formally merge the Registrar of Friendly Societies and the Companies Registration Office
Merge the Health & Safety Authority and the National Employment Rights Authority into a single Work Place Inspectorate.
Merge the Labour Court and the Labour Relations Commission
Transfer of activities such as the administration for Joint Labour Committees and the Rights Commissioners to the National Employment Rights Authority
Consolidate all indigenous enterprise support and sector marketing functions in Enterprise Ireland
Merge HEA with D/E&S
Transfer Údarás na Gaeltachta’s enterprise development functions to Enterprise Ireland
Transfer the Western Development Commission’s enterprise development functions to Enterprise Ireland
Discontinuation of Shannon Development
Merge the Digital Hub Development Agency with EI/IDA
Merge ComReg and the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland.
Transfer the Irish Film Classification Office into the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland
Merge eight regional fisheries Boards into a single national authority
Merge Partnerships and Volunteer Centre structures (both funded mainly by D/CR&GA) with County Childcare Committees (funded by Department of Health & Children)
Merge the National Consumer Agency and the Competition Authority
Merge Irish Takeover Panel with the Competition Authority
Merge Pensions Ombudsman with the Financial Service Ombudsman
Merge Pensions Board with the Financial Regulator
Merge Maritime Safety Directorate into a new Body
I don’t see how they’ll make local government self-financing without making major changes to the current structures that are in place. Either they devolve different areas to local authorities and allow them to fund it or they force local authorities to completely privatise everything because they have no central government income to fund it. My guess is, it’ll be the latter….
Research from the European Central Bank (ECB) found that between 1999 and 2006, average public sector pay in Ireland increased by 67 per cent, which in the rest of the
Eurozone grew by just 22 per cent.
Irish public sector pay has grown faster than any other country in the EU and actual pay levels have overtaking those in almost every other OECD country.
• In the six years between 2001 and 2006, public sector salaries rose by 59 per cent. The increase in the average industrial wage over the same period was 19 per cent.
• Salaries, and not services, are far and away the major input cost in our public sector, including the Health Service.
• The public sector pay bill now accounts for 38 per cent of total government spending and this percentage is set to rise dramatically in 2009 as tax revenues collapse.
• The public sector pay/pensions bill for 2008 is €18.6 billion and will be over €20 billion in 2009.
• From 2001–2006, public sector pensions increased by 81.3 per cent, from €876 million to €1.5 billion.
• Retired civil servants who sit on job interview panels earn up to €878 per day.
In December 2008, SIPTU General President Jack O’Connor said, in relation to cuts in public service pay: ‘Any savings that would be made by reducing public sector pay would be pennies in terms of the overall problems for the economy’.
Given the figures outlined above, these ‘pennies’ were clearly not being counted and controlled by the Irish government.
And why should they? Every time the public service unions gained, the politicians made equal gains via the benchmarking process.
A loss of competitiveness in the private sector gets remedied by either wage adjustment or job reductions. Such mechanisms are not applied within the public sector.
Building permanent costs like these into public sector pay and pensions was nothing short of scandalous and will cripple Ireland’s future prospects unless they are reversed.
The demands of the public sector unions and the acquiescence of our self-serving politicians to these demands have directly opened up the ‘emigrant trail’ as the only option, once more, for the young people of Ireland. Our politicians, who engineered this, should hang their heads in shame at what is a disgraceful episode in our young nation’s history.
http://celticmeltdown.webs.com/nama.htm