Category Archives: Misc

politicalmoose

Having a baby?

The author traces the iniquities of a system that fails everyone.

Frilly Keane writes:

That’s nice.

Isn’t it?

The Lads getting paid paternity leave. Like the Girls; Two hundred and thurty yoyos a week, just like the Girls.

Not for the 26 weeks mind, so they might have sum’ting to say about that. But I suppose when they can breast feed on demand after they have their whole’s ripped open they’ll be getting all the weeks they want; maybe even post-natal Pensions. I’m all for it, look after the Daddies. Happy Daddies makes life much easier for new Mammies.

But here I am wondering if the Lads will be getting their employers to top up their Social Welfare €230.00 per week?

Like the Girls, if they‘re Guards, Teachers, Public Sector etc, Semi- State etc and Bank employees before a certain date etc, Big Charity NGO etc; they too, like the Girls will automatically get Employer top ups to full or near full pay for the duration of their Paternity Hols.

The closest number I can get back-up for is 18%. That is 18% of the current work force is in this employer bracket.

That’s nice.

But if the Lads are in Industry, Private Sector SME IBEC country, it’s anyone’s guess. IBEC say that most small businesses don’t pay the Girls top up. IBEC also say that 59% “Usually” top up. (My whole is it 59% by the way) but if they say so. I wonder will it be the same for the Lads and their Paternity leave?

Yep, here I am again, giving out about the them-n-us in our Maternity Hospitals & Labour Wards.

So let’s go back to the numbers. Of all the Girls that have babies on the day you read this, 18% will certainly be getting their full pay.

To demonstrate my view on Maternity Leave Inequality I’m going to use the current average industrial wage for the first quarter of 2016 as the measuring jug; the CSO currently quote that figure as €707.99.

That’s nice. The difference between €707.99 per week and €230.00 per week is very nice.

To save ye doing a few sums that’s € 477.90; per week; for 26 weeks. That’s €12,427.74 of a difference in just six months.

That’s right – what Social Welfare stump up is over twelve grand less than the Average Industrial Wage.

How do you feel about PRSI now?

Look back over your last 2 P60s and tot up your PRSI contribution and your Employers Contribution. EE + ER. How far apart is it from €5,980.00? (€230*26) Then Maternity Benefit is only what you’ve paid for yourself. FFS; now it’s a Rebate.

Is it news to learn that many Girls not in that 18% will work right up to their due date because they can’t afford not to? Is it news to learn that many of these girls will fake their due date?

They did in my day because there had to be a 4 week run in ahead of the due date, now its 2 weeks so I’d say it’s not as widespread as it was back when I was doing out the MB10.

But the unfairness hasn’t changed. My experience is my own, fair enough, because every Girl has a different story to tell. But I still hear stories of Girls needing one more week at work to pay off the Mothercare/ Mama’s n’ Papa’s order.

I still hear stories of Girls needing to get back to work just to put credit in their phones. I still hear stories of Girls with new-borns taking other kids out’ve of child-care because the €230 per week won’t stretch to it. Nor will it stretch to the Mortgage. Or even her half of it.

This is inequality because it’s unfair. And it’s our fault for letting it off.

It is not the fault of the 18%, it is not the fault of the so called remaining “usually” 59% from IBEC (again my whole, it’s more like 29%.) It is the fault of the F U Jacks. And that’s pretty much every single one of us at some stage.

I’d love to know the real number of the Girls that go back to work in debt. Girls with loaded credit cards, scaldy over-drafts, loans from the Credit Union, Provident, Baby Daddies and other Family members (who’d be the first to whinge about it btw.) Anyone?

I seriously doubt the Paternity Daddies will be going back to work that much out’ve pocket that they have to go the Provie man.

Here’s my thing, either put everyone on full pay or nobody, and then you’ll see the Public Sector get it back up to full pay for everyone. Or at least (where it is applicable and makes sense) let the value of the Maternity (and Daddies too) Benefit reflect the total PRSI Contributions for say the previous two years. Mind you with Leo in the gig, ‘M’uck knows who’s going to get looked after.

it’s just me, but there is something very heart-breaking about the Girl with a cranky colicky teethy five month old that’s down to her last fiver before she gets back to work and still needs to find sum’ting that fits, the Girl that can’t join the other new Mammies for coffee and cake, the Girl that has to hear “tis your turn to pay the rent”, the Girl that loses her place in the Baby Room because she doesn’t have the month in advance for the Crèche, the Girl that has to hand over her first few weeks/ months wages to someone else. Maybe it’s just me.

I hope it’s not.

Happy Father’s Day.

FYI, for anyone who’s arsed: . Also note, I’m not unaware of the carry-on Girls, and now Lads, who are self-employed have to get through just for that €230.00 per week.
It may look like I’ve ignored ye, but I promise it is not intended to be a slight or to be blasé in another example of the F U Jack, I’m one of ye now, and it’s the bed we’ve (well most’ve us) made ourselves.
The unfairness of our taxes and levies versus our Welfare benefits is a far different and wider battle; and one for anudder Friday. Or better again, maybe tis one for Taft and his charts. I also didn’t include Child Benefit in the above as its Statutory and therefore right across the board…

Frilly keane’s column appears here every Friday. Follow Frilly on Twitter: @frillykeane

Illustration: Political Moose

90422026rory

From top: the Committee on Housing and Homelessness launching the Report of the Committee on Housing and Homelessness in Leinster House today; Dr Rory Hearne

Further to Nama Wine Lake’s analysis last night.

While the focus is on an ‘off-balance’ sheet mechanism to fund social housing we could be facing a situation where there are over 3,000 homeless by this time next year.

Dr Rory Hearne writes:

There is a lot of criticism of the political system in Ireland, and particularly the elected TDs and how the Dáil goes about its business, for being ineffective and a waste of time.

The newly formed Committee on Housing and Homelessness has shown what politicians can achieve. The committee was only set up two months ago, in April, “to review the implications of the problems of housing and homelessness, and to make recommendations in that regard”.

And this is vital and urgent work. The Dublin Regional Homeless Executive provides regular updates of the homeless figures in Dublin and the most recent ones from April show this crisis is just getting worse.

Their infographic below reveals that in April, there were 888 families with 1,786 children in homeless accommodation in Dublin. The number of children is almost double what it was just a year earlier.

homelessapril16

At this rate of increase in homelessness we could be facing a situation where there are over 3,000 homeless by this time next year. A shocking prospect.

The Committee on Housing and Homelessness has had presentations over the last two months from a broad range of organisations, groups and individuals involved in housing.

These included the housing charities (Peter McVerry Trust, Focus Ireland, Simon Communities of Ireland, Threshold), also representatives of excluded groups (Irish Refugee Council, Pavee Point), the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation, the Residents of Tyrellstown affected by evictions from the vulture funds.

The policy decision makers and funders also presented including the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), the Department of Finance, NAMA, the Housing Finance Agency, the Minister for Housing and the Minister for Finance, and the Irish Property Owners Association, the Irish League of Credit Unions and the Construction Industry Federation.

Interesting individual experts such as  the Master of the High Court Edmund Honohan, Professor PJ Drudy, and the Mercy Law Resource Centre also presented.

There are groups who are very active at a grassroots level – such as Housing Action Now and the Irish Housing Network – who do not appear to have presented to the committee which is unfortunate given their ‘on-the-ground’ experience of supporting those most affected by the crisis and their innovative ideas on potential solutions.

The quality of debate at the committee meetings was very high and there was a substantial amount of really important information provided on the facts about the housing crisis, the different groups affected and potential solutions to the crisis.

All the submissions and the discussions at the committee are very interesting and you can read them all on the Oireachtas website here.

For example, during its hearing on May 31, the NTMA and the Department of Finance made a presentation on the issue of our ability to borrow (while staying within the EU fiscal rules) in order fund the provision of much-needed social housing.

The NTMA (the National Treasury Management Agency) manages our National Debt and various funds such as the Infrastructure Investment Ireland Fund (which is what used to be the National Pension Reserve Fund) and borrows on behalf of the Government.

The NTMA explained that Ireland’s debt levels (the debt to GDP ratio) have fallen from 120% to 94% but our absolute level of debt, at over €200 billion, is four times what it was in 2007.

And the annual interest that we must pay on this debt is close to €7 billion (which was just €2 billion in 2007).

European fiscal rules require Ireland to reduce the debt-to-GDP ratio by roughly 5% per annum.

But due to our economic growth rates we are achieving this and therefore, there is ‘fiscal space under the debt-reduction rule’ that could allow us borrow more while staying within the EU rules.

But the debt is only one of three rules.

The other two relate to government expenditure benchmark and the ‘balanced budget’ rule. This means that if we borrow to spend or invest directly by the government (or local authority which is considered a state agency), for example in social housing, it affects our public spending limits.

But if we borrow and invest it through a non-government body on a commercial basis it does not affect public spending limits as it is considered by EUROSTAT (the European agency that defines if we are breaking the rules or not) to be ‘off-balance-sheet’ spending.

This is why pretty much the sole focus of the Department of Housing, Finance and Government has been trying to find ‘off-balance’ sheet mechanisms that allow investment not affect the rules.

But there is a very obvious issue here that requires clarification. If you increase spending on an area, like social housing, and fund this through an equivalent increase in taxation, then surely nothing changes in terms of the budget deficit?

Now if the planned abolition of the USC was going to cost us approximately €4bn then surely that could be paused which would then leaves a number of billions that could be invested in social housing provision and not require borrowing or lead to a breaching of EU rules?

The committee will present its final report today.

It will be well worth a read to see what’s in it.

Dr Rory Hearne is a policy analyst, academc, social justice campaigner. He writes here in a personal capacity. Follow Rory on Twitter: @roryhearne

Yesterday Nama Winer Lake Writes

Screen Shot 2016-06-17 at 09.18.05

Taoiseach Enda Kenny at the opening of a new €150million data centre at Google’s offices in Dublin yesterday

Dara Doyle and Stephanie Bodoni, of Bloomberg, report:

Near the top of the agenda [in Brussels] for investors continues to be the European Commission’s probe into Apple Inc.’s tax arrangements in Ireland, with both the company and the Irish authorities bracing for a decision that the Irish provided the iPhone maker with illegal state aid through a sweetheart deal.

In the first clues to a firm timeline for a decision on a probe which opened in 2014, Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan told Bloomberg on Thursday in Luxembourg that the commission may publish a decision sometime in July, though “we don’t know that with certainty.”

…There’s a range of estimates out there. In a worst-case scenario, Apple may face a $19 billion bill if the government ultimately loses and is forced to recoup tax from the company, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst Rod Hall. Matt Larson of Bloomberg Intelligence puts the figure at more than $8 billion.

…Who gets the cash? Notionally, Ireland, even though the government says it doesn’t want it.

Why doesn’t Ireland want the cash, which after all could be equivalent to about all of the nation’s corporate tax last year? There’s a bigger picture, here, according to briefing notes provided to the incoming finance minister last month; a negative decision would hurt the country’s reputation and create uncertainty around it’s tax offering, which has been a key factor in drawing companies like Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. to Dublin.

Ireland and Apple Brace for the Worst as Tax Endgame Nears (Bloomberg)

Rollingnews

Storks

What you may need to know:

1. Storks stop delivering babies and start delivering packages for a massive online retailer instead. *Cough* Amazon.

2. Other multinational online retail monopolies are available.

3. Storks is the first animated movie from Nicholas Stoller, director of Forgetting Sarah Marshall (yay), The Muppets (double yay) and Bad Neighbours (oh).

4. With Andy Samberg, Kelsey Grammer, Jennifer Aniston, Key and Peele.

5. Broadsheet prognosis: Pregxit, stage left.

Release Date: October 14.

(Mark writes about film and TV at ScreenTime.ie)