Ireland Officially In Recession.

Er, I've never done up anything in my life, regardless of age, Songs! I've always paid locals and fortunately I still have contacts in the Staffs area, where I'd be looking at. There's no way I'd be looking to do a physical tap myself, and that includes brushing up the debris! When I talk about doing places up, I mean hiring in people to do it - most places I'm thinking of in the area need the installation of c.h., sometimes re-wiring, certainly upgrading the plumbing and the boiler, etc. and usually a decent kitchen. What I did do was to source best prices, get best deals, decide on the actual work to be done (i.e. make a small washroom/loo out of a redundant cupboard, open up the cellar, etc.), trundle back and forth to suppliers and keep a check on expenses.

I've got a good pal up there who would do the handyman/decorating stuff, although the chap who overhauled one little house for me died shortly afterwards - I still hope the effort had nothing to do with that! But there are small local teams who always have a one-man band electrics, plumber, etc. and I've used those recommended to me by others whose work I can see. I wouldn't ever recommend plucking someone unknown out of the phone book - I've gone by local recommendations and asked to see what the chap's actually done.
 
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Hey my first contribution to the chit chat section, and could be my last :)

I'm sick and tired of everyone moaning about this bloody bailout!! We elected the government, they made mistakes, the bankers made mistakes, the public made mistakes. Everyone made mistakes. We all must pay for it.

But yet for such a "poor" or "bankrupt" nation, there are still queues in the coffee shop, it still costs €5 for a sandwich and 25,000 people still had the money to go to the Argentina/Ireland game today. Come back to me when we can no longer afford €2.50 for our fancy Frappa whatever they're called, we are bringing in our packed lunches everyday, and a day out at a game is seen as a once a year treat. Then we are poor!!
 
Cantoris said:
Hey my first contribution to the chit chat section, and could be my last :)

I'm sick and tired of everyone moaning about this bloody bailout!! We elected the government, they made mistakes, the bankers made mistakes, the public made mistakes. Everyone made mistakes. We all must pay for it.

But yet for such a "poor" or "bankrupt" nation, there are still queues in the coffee shop, it still costs €5 for a sandwich and 25,000 people still had the money to go to the Argentina/Ireland game today. Come back to me when we can no longer afford €2.50 for our fancy Frappa whatever they're called, we are bringing in our packed lunches everyday, and a day out at a game is seen as a once a year treat. Then we are poor!!
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Thank heavens for a sane comment... OK, I know I don't have to read this thread but it's usually at the top of the stack, so fairly unmissable..

If you want to know what bankrupt really means, go check out a few Third World nations, where the average weekly wage wouldn't even buy a frappachino.. then you get to moan. You, like the rest of us, enjoyed the good times - I've lived through two such economic growth periods and you either make the most of them and budget for the bad times which will come or you live for today and let tomorrow take care of itself, which is pretty much how I've viewed the attitude to the Celtic Tiger economy. Excess has been pretty much a watchword for not just Ireland but many other Western economies for the past twenty odd years and it always catches up with you.

So you can either stop moaning about it, change the way your country is run by working from within, or you go with the flow and live with it.
 
Cantoris said:
But yet for such a "poor" or "bankrupt" nation, there are still queues in the coffee shop, it still costs €5 for a sandwich and 25,000 people still had the money to go to the Argentina/Ireland game today. Come back to me when we can no longer afford €2.50 for our fancy Frappa whatever they're called, we are bringing in our packed lunches everyday, and a day out at a game is seen as a once a year treat. Then we are poor!!
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What about the dole queus and the people just about scraping past on a week to week? Your comment is fair enough for those making 25k+ in a stable job (which includes myself thank God) but what about the lads who have been (and many more soon will be) laid off from jobs that were just about keeping their families above water as it was. If "we" stop including "them" then society has utterly broken down and there's not a damn thing the IMF or ECB can do stop it.

It's not the people that can afford to spend crazy money going to a rugby match (or any other sporting event for that matter) right now who are the worst affected, that's for sure.
 
Then you, like us, have to start getting tough with the freeloaders who have been doing very nicely, thanks, from a social welfare system that has refused to deal with individuals but gives handouts en masse and now needs to start distinguishing between the genuinely in need and those who can't be arsed - and there are still an awful lot of those about.

We all need to ensure no one does without the essentials - ie reasonable accommodation, warmth, decent food and proper healthcare. After that, then in my book, you're not poor if you can't afford your Sky sub or your 42" plasma TV. I'm not ecstatic about paying more tax but I genuinely would be happy to do so if I could be certain the above criteria were being met but not for anything else.
 
Hands up who thinks that after three years (already increased to 4 years after no more than 4 days) of austerity measures the government will have a budget deficit of less than 3% of GDP? This thing is only going to get increasingly worse. The reason people are still buying their coffee and half filling rugby stadiums for overpriced matches is that there has only been a small percentage drop in living standards so far. Tinkering with the edges. With so many people living on the edge at the moment this of course means many have fallen off. Over the next three years more and more people are going to start feeling real pain.

My prediction is that every prediction we have heard from any official source regarding the final cost of the banks, growth within the economy and government expenditure savings will prove over-optimistic and that the government accounts will look even worse in three years time than they do now. At some point Industrial Relations unrest will have to rear its ugly head to complicate matters further. Bad as this budget will be, the next two will be worse, and still nothing will be solved. Then we'll see your jam sandwiches and flasks of tea.
 
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Looking from the outside Melendez, I found the growth forecasts of 2.7 % pa extraordinary given that the cuts are going to kick in deep into your economy. and what is the growth going to be based on? A property boom?

Many economists seem to believe that the current bailout (as huge as it is) will not be sufficient in the medium term

For those that think coffees are the prime economic indicator, I would have agood look at what the term bankrupt means.....
 
On The Bridle said:
5.8% only 0.7% more than Greece!!
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The Greece loan is for 3 years, Irelands "facility" is for 9 years, hence the more expensive rate.

Clive, you make a valid point, I am not sure where the growth rate of 2.7% will come from, I would like to research this myself, it certainly will not come from property.

JohnJ.
 
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Presumably they are hoping for further direct foreign investment and that the keeping of the 12.5% corp tax will be the main driver of this.
 
The 'real' economy in Ireland isn't doing too bad. There is a balance of payments surplus this year and exports are growing. If the rest of Europe and the US see a resumption of reasonable growth then Ireland should too.
 
Melendez said:
Hands up who thinks that after three years (already increased to 4 years after no more than 4 days) of austerity measures the government will have a budget deficit of less than 3% of GDP? This thing is only going to get increasingly worse.
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Ireland is a small open economy. It's ability to grow is dependent on the markets it feeds, the UK, wider Europe, US. If these economies grow, then Ireland will grow. It is a simbiotic relationship. Of course, if these economies grow faster than we can adapt, interest rates will rise faster than wage rates or emplyoment levels and it is a vicious circle......the mortgage problems increase. We are on a very fine line here. If rates went up 1%, a lot of Irish people would be stuffed with their mortgage. My 10% pay cut was offset by the drop in mortgage payments. If I keep my job I won't have a problem with a 1% increase in interest rates, but plenty of others might and that creates more problems. However, low interest rates might suit home owners but it shows that growth is just not there in our feeder economies.

Do I think the austerity measures are good? Yes. They will be painful for all, more for some than others. I'll prob end up paying €150 more in tax a month but if I keep my job, that's doable. But we will have a leaner country at the end of it and we got very fat during the good years. There is no incentive for most on social welfare to get off it (unless they want to get off it and make an investment for no more money) and while I might need social welfare some day, it should be to put food on the table and some sort of a roof over my head. €800 a month is surely more than enough for that if you pack in the mobile phone, dump the car etc etc.
 
You will be paying more than €150 per month. By 2014 they are raising an extra €5B per annum. There are a little over 1 million taxpayers, there will be more, but the newbies will not be paying much. Your average Nurse/Garda will be paying €300-500 per month extra. Two person working families will lose out by 600/1000 per month.
 
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Melendez said:
You will be paying more than €150 per month. By 2014 they are raising an extra €5B per annum. There are a little over 1 million taxpayers, there will be more, but the newbies will not be paying much. Your average Nurse/Garda will be paying €300-500 per month extra. Two person working families will lose out by 600/1000 per month.
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Thats about right as far as I can see it - you need to do your sums again C!! 12k per annum off a family's income never mind bonusues forgone, previous pay cuts, indirect tax increases etc. I don't think the general population have actually grasped what this plan is going to mean for them, their employers and the economy in general!! Its savage:mad:
 
Technically, based on the plan, my figures are a bit of an exaggeration, in that there are quite a few more than 1 million income taxpayers and only €3.8B of the increased taxes are income tax (assuming property tax will come only from this grouping). The rest of the €1.2B will be spread out among all earners.

In reality, I suspect I will end up closer to reality than the plan, if anything erring on the optimistic side, on the basis that the VAT increases won't yeild any extra tax if they happen at all, extra government loan repayments will need to be covered that are not in the plan, and growth will be slower than assumed with both revenue and social welfare implications.
 
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Melendez said:
You will be paying more than €150 per month. By 2014 they are raising an extra €5B per annum. There are a little over 1 million taxpayers, there will be more, but the newbies will not be paying much. Your average Nurse/Garda will be paying €300-500 per month extra. Two person working families will lose out by 600/1000 per month.
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The €15bn is over 4 years, €10bn in cost savings and €5bn in tax increases....over 4 years. The Sunday business post suggested that someone earning €55k would pay €1,000 more tax in 2011, increasing to €1,800 by 2014. So they would have paid circa €5k extra over that 4 year period. Interestingly, they suggested someone on €80k would be no worse off on the tax front as they will be reducing the tax bands rather than raising tax rates. Presumably because they know the pension tax changes are going to have most effect on the higher earners who tend to be bigger contributors to pensions.
 
Cantoris, sadly you are wrong. The object is to reduce the goverment deficit by €15B per year by 2014, it is not the total reduction over the 4 years.

http://budget.gov.ie/The%20National%20Recovery%20Plan%202011-2014.pdf

If you look at table 6.1 on page 91 you will see this is the cumulative effects of the next 4 budgets. I can assure you there is now intention to lower the income tax take next year.
This year they are increasing the tax take by €2,020m
and increasing again by €1,130m in 2012(to €3,150 higher than current)
and increasing again by €1,020m in 2014 (to €4,170 higher than current)
and increasing again by €890m in 2014 (to €5,060 higher than current)

I haven't seen the Sunday Business Post article but if they are suggesting someone on €80k will be no worse off on the tax front they are completely wrong. Lowering the tax bands\reducing allowances means you start paying tax earlier and you also hit the higher rate earlier. Everyone gets hit (although higher earners proportionately less). Besides that, although it is not specifically mentioned in the plan (that i noticed) I believe it is the intention to raise at least the higher tax rate at some stage over the three years, as well as having a third super tax rate for €100k+ earners. It is certainly not ruled out in the plan. Scooting through it now they just mention "fundamental reform".

How the €10B in spending cuts (per annum) will hit consumers I haven't really bothered to investigate but some of this expenditure will surely have to be passed on eventually through private industry, pent up infrastructural costs etc. It won't all be efficiency savings.
 
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Melendez said:
Cantoris, sadly you are wrong. The object is to reduce the goverment deficit by €15B per year by 2014, it is not the total reduction over the 4 years.
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Page 6 "the government has decided that 40% or €6 billion of the €15bn adjustment will be made in 2011". So that's not €15bn a year becasue they have clearly said above it is €6bn in year one, not PER YEAR.

Page 91 says that an income tax payers will pay £1.2bn more in 2011, another €0.3bn in 2012 and so on until the tax payer is paying an extra €1.8bn in 2014 COMPARED TO 2010.

And just in case you still don't believe me, on page 102 it says "by 2014, net pay for a single person on €55k will be reduced by €1,860 per annum or 4.8%. The overall tax wedge on average earnings for a single individual will increase from 28.6% in 2009 to 33.7% by 2014". So that's 5% on that €55k which is €2,750 before you consider tax credits so once again ties in with the €1,860 above. And just to remind you, that's €1,860 more tax in 2014 compared to 2010.

Your reference to €5bn in tax represents the total tax changes, €1bn of which is from changes in pension taxes which does not effect the lower paid workers as heavily as higher paid workers who make large AVC payments. VAT is a tax on spending so you can control that. Other taxes depend on what you own. A car will cost you a carbon tax, a house a property tax. But the underlying income tax cost for someone on €55k to €80k will be €150 per month. I never once mentioned that those would not be paying any more tax, simply that it is managable for someone with a job.
 
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