2011
2012
irishtimes.com/news/eu-warns … m-1.544170
2013
https://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/images/1/15/MW_map_EUR_January_2013.png
google.com/publicdata/explor … &ind=false
Minimum wage by purchasing power:
https://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/images/e/e8/MW_as_%25_of_mean_January_2013.png
trueeconomics.blogspot.com.au/2009/08/economics-14082009-irish-welfare-rates.html
I hear austerity isn’t working.
That suits austerity, it’s a grand number
Unfortunately despite the cuts and tax hikes we have had no meaningful austerity with respect to the scale of the problems Ireland faces. NAMA, Welfare spending, Pensions crisis, the coming second banking crisis.
Look at the minimum wage map. We have more in common with the southern and eastern countries now. Yet we have changed nothing. People think they have seen terrible cuts but they pale in comparison.
thejournal.ie/many-would-be- … 4-Jun2012/
People often jump on this and try to think up ways of subsidizing childcare. Instead of getting to the root of the problem like why do we have a surplus of workers and yet are unable to provide cheaper childcare we jump to throwing more good money down the drain increasing taxes and increasing the cost of living
Clearly Irish people didn`t suddenly suffer a bout of laziness and all go on the dole. Irish people are hard working and have been very successful across the world. The fact that 300,000 emigrated abroad to work when they could have sat around and been comfortable enough on welfare shows it. People aspire to do better.
The problem here is the system and it is unaffordable. It is hard to defend the system too. Many will say welfare is so high because the cost of living is so high here, and they are correct. But they are linked as clearly demonstrated by the rent allowance figures and the fact that half of the population is in receipt of some form of welfare payment.
The inefficiencies here are colossal but because they are in depth reforms would yield colossal improvements.
I suggest to any academics reading to get a Phd student to work on how much, in terms of GDP/reduced unemployment/reduced taxes etc our economy would benefit from sweeping reforms.
We should get rid of the minimum wage for a start.
We should also make it much easier to start up and expand a business in Ireland. Some minister awhile back suggested that businesses need anywhere up to 32 licenses in order to operate.
Ireland is already one of the easiest countries in the world in which to start a business - measured by the relative lack of red tape. It might sound counterintuitive but it’s confirmed regularly. The issue is not startup per se but rather things like rates, insurance costs, legal fees, lack of domestic investment, etc - all wider structural factors.
I actually started a thread for all things Social Welfare last week
Closing one down is even pricier 
I think the problem arises when you try and get beyond a small number of staff. The step up in time taken on the admin side is quite large.
of all the rip offs in ireland and u start with the minimum wage. truly pathetic. id leave min wage until the very very end
i presume those pinsters dying to see the unemployed starve also object to the massive corporate welfare that has bankrupted the state?
Social welfare should be abolished across Europe just to see what happens…
For the craic like…
There must be some way to replace part of the dole with food stamps, then put the screws on the supermarkets to either reduce prices or lose all welfare customers.
One goal of welfare is to keep people healthy, so why not transform 50% of the dole into fruit/veg vouchers, butter vouchers (I remember these), meat vouchers, and so on.
So the state becomes an instrumental player in the grocery market (it’s already a powerless player; the change is for the better) and can start to address the high prices charged by the supermarkets. People on welfare continue to receive some cash, but they’re pushed into certain food purchases.
I heard Joan Burton on the radio the other day, saying how she wanted to protect social welfare payments because (paraphrasing) every euro spent on social welfare is then spent in local businesses. It seems clear that the govt is running up massive deficits and a huge public debt to try and keep the plates spinning, to keep borrrowed cash flowing into the economy. High social welfare is one way to get cash directly into the economy, that’s why the keep supporting it
The first things to be tackled should be what businesses listed as reasons for relocating out of Ireland:
Insurance costs
Electricity costs
Insurance costs
Rates
Wages
Minimum wage should be left until last. These are the things that should be tackled hard and fast before welfare reforms.
But this does not mean the welfare state is any more affordable.
I heard Joan Burton and her bizarre Robin Hood economics - Morning Ireland, I think.
Labour’s Way (and the Left in general) is to keep as many people idle as possible, in order that they can provide a permanent political base, as well as being included in that most desirable of groups, “de most vulnerable in society”. Their only way forward, it seems, is to keep us at the top of the charts in Lone Parents, “Disability”, long term unemployment etc., etc…( And, as an added bonus we have an “ethnic” community who are almost entirely dependent on the State for their every need, without contributing anything.) Fantastic.
irishexaminer.com/ireland/qu … 72138.html
IRELAND has one of the highest rates in Europe of children living in single-parent households.
irishtimes.com/news/ireland- … d-illness-
Ireland leads euro area in workforce disability and illness
More Irish adults are outside the workforce owing to disability and illness than in any other of the euro area’s 17 countries, according to unpublished data obtained by The Irish Times from the EU statistics agency Eurostat.
More than one in 20 Irish adults under 60 reported having exited the jobs market owing to disability and illness in 2010. This was double the euro zone average. Since the recession began there has been a marked increase in this category.
However, the figures show that even during the boom the proportion of adults under 60 not in the labour force owing to disability and illness was well above the European average.
irishexaminer.com/ireland/80 … 11310.html
More than eight out of 10 Travellers are unemployed, as low participation in education continues to persist among the community.
According to census data released by the CSO, the number of Travellers stood at 29,573 last year, accounting for around 0.6% of the population. This represents a 32% increase on 2006. More than four out of five Travellers lived in an urban area, with most living in Galway.
Unemployment in the Traveller community stood at 84.3% in 2011, up from almost 75% five years earlier.
Increase in use of sedatives and anti-depressants - → rte.ie/news/2012/1023/342799 … se-survey/
23 October 2012
Use of sedatives or tranquillisers and anti-depressants in Ireland. - → drugsandalcohol.ie/19118/
to claim disability benefit with no obvious disability it is good to be classified as depressed. to prove you are depressed you need to be officially depressed and the easiest way of doing that is by getting a doctor to say you are depressed and giving you a prescription for anti-depressants. I know someone who was trying to get disability via this avenue based on unofficial “advice” from someone in social welfare.
practically no disability allowance claims are being allowed at the moment so those with genuine illnesses are being given the run around along with the bluffers.
Minimum wage is a rip off in and of itself. It causes job losses and stops low skilled poorly educated workers from getting on the jobs ladder in the first place. Incidentally, why don’t you become an employer yourself and employ people on a wage you deem appropriate?
Obviously this comment doesn’t refer to me so I will let others respond.
The way to understand the minimum wage in Ireland is to understand which vested interests it serves. It’s largely driven by the unions because they can see arbitrage between their members earnings and what’s available on the labour market, so by imposing price controls on labour they cannot be easily undercut.
