Berties Billion

[earl]

Ireland's prime minister Bertie Ahern has come under pressure to forsake a £26,500 pay rise from opposition parties in the Republic.

The raise, which will bring his salary to £216,700, comes at a time of cuts to the Republic's health service.

Most public sector workers in the country are expected to get a 3% pay rise this year.

Ireland's taoiseach earns more than the UK's prime minister, Gordon Brown.

However, the PM received a salary hike this year when he swapped the keys for Number 11 to Number 10 Downing Street.

The move from Chancellor to Prime Minister saw his salary rise from £136,000 to £187,000 - an instant pay hike of £51k.

He also has the use of two homes - Downing Street and Chequers - rent-free.

Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar told the Irish Independent government pay rises - which will see cabinet members get an £18,200 rise - showed the administration was "drunk on power and detached from reality".

By comparison the salary of Northern Ireland's First Minister is about £85,000, made up of £71,000 for the post and one third of an MLA's salary. This is abated because Ian Paisley is also in receipt of pay for being the MP for North Antrim.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7063465.stm

What this article neglects to add is that Bertie is now earning a bigger salary than the president of the USA, by €80,000! Brian Cowen, our Finance minister, is now on a salary equivalent to Bush, and higher than Germany's PM.

This has come at a time when they are cutting back on costs in the health services, which are already in tatters, an expected rise in taxes (not surprised with the hike in TD's wages!) in the next budget, and the official end of the Celtic tiger years.

Those robbing bastids are going to be in for a shock. This is not going down well at all. If SF had any decent financial policies on their books, they could start recruiting already. Fcuk it, I'd even vote for SF now, and I'm a die-hard capitalist! I'm sick to the back teeth of this crowd of thieves. Setanta, tell your guys to get their finger out, modernise their financial strategy, and you never know. SF could very well be the king makers in the next election. They will have a few years experience by that stage of how to be in government, which will allow the larger parties to go into partnership with them without as much of the controversy and hesitation as last time. The Greens have pr oven to be less than useless. FG are FF lite. Labour are a pack of fat-cat Union pr1cks, the PD's may see an increase next time because they are so insignificant at the mo, I reckon a lot of current FF voters will switch.

[An Fear Dubh]

I have always believed that a TD/MP salary or a trade union official should have their wage linked to the people they represent. ie; the national average wage.

I like the way SF sort out their reps, they take the full wage and each rep gets the national average wage, and the rest goes to party funds. I would be more inclined to support the larger salaries if I knew that each rep was doing this. And that donations to parties was not allowed. So they needed to have many elected reps to get party funding.

Now I always thought of FF as FG lite, but Earl might have a point!

I have been surprised at how poor the Greens have turned out to be, but they always say get them into power to see how real they are!

[earl]

anfeardubh said:

I have always believed that a TD/MP salary or a trade union official should have their wage linked to the people they represent. ie; the national average wage.

I like the way SF sort out their reps, they take the full wage and each rep gets the national average wage, and the rest goes to party funds. I would be more inclined to support the larger salaries if I knew that each rep was doing this. And that donations to parties was not allowed. So they needed to have many elected reps to get party funding.

Now I always thought of FF as FG lite, but Earl might have a point!

I have been surprised at how poor the Greens have turned out to be, but they always say get them into power to see how real they are!

The Greens are a pack of veggies who don't have the stomach, wit or energy to take on the carnivorous brown-envelopers! FF have around 60 years of guile and cunning on them.

[sideshow]

youre right they have been exposed for what they really are.I voted for them number 1 cos I thought they had principle and freshness-never again

[An Fear Dubh]

I am not sure that they have been exposed, but I see where you get that. It is more that it is easy to have principles in opposition it is difficult to use them when in Government. FF did better than expected and were able to squeeze the Greens dry. Yes they could have done better but they will have learnt big time. The next time they will be a lot more seasoned, and while they may loose votes come the next election I expect them to rebuild after that.

[An Fear Dubh]

I actually think there are some hard lessons that Sinn Féin should take note of and maybe learn from, in the negotiation between FF and the Greens. Now the media are full of stories probably planted by pro-FF people of how hard-ball Brian Cowan was with the Greens during negotiations. He certainly talked that way on camera in public prior to full negotiations.
So what was the Greens one issue that they held out on and they were not negotiatable on?

[An Fear Dubh]

Are you saying that the Greens got Fianna Fáil to agree that no carbon tax would be introduced on anything?

[Jim]

What else do you expect from the green party?

[An Fear Dubh]

I think things like Carbon tax, waste tax, and others are to be expected from a Green Party the idea is that they want to reduce such things by making financial penalities.

But to return to the point of the Green Party. What did they promise in their election manifesto that when it came to forming a coalition with FF they were unable to break that electorial pledge?