Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
EXPENDITURE MINISTER Paschal Donohoe has said that he “disagrees” with comments made this afternoon that the Lansdowne Road agreement “is no longer viable”.
Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) General Secretary Patricia King told RTÉ News earlier today that the public sector pay agreement is no longer relevant after the government offered a better pay deal to the gardaí.
“They agreed more favourable terms with a group who are outside and never part of the Lansdowne Road Agreement,” she said.
Minister Donohoe said that he disagreed with this sentiment, but said the one thing they did agree on, was that they needed a collective agreement on public pay.
The other option would be a ‘free for all’ where unions will separately seek pay increases, but King said that she got “no indication” from the government that that’s what they wanted.
Garda strikes
A fortnight ago, thousands of gardaí threatened strike action over pay and work conditions, which forced the government into new pay negotiations.
The Labour Court made recommendations including increased rent supplement and extra payments for days off to the gardaí, after which the garda trade unions announced that all planned strike action would be called off.
King said that the garda pay deal was ‘clearly a breach’ of Lansdowne Road and that the government admitted so themselves.
The Government has no choice if it wants to stay in collective agreement, other than restarting negotiations on a new pay deal.
Speaking on RTÉ tonight Minister Donohoe said that he had said the garda pay deal would have “far-reaching ramifications” for public pay, and has expressed concerns before that there isn’t enough money to solve all industrial disputes.
Earlier this week Siptu president Jack O’Connor said that if the government didn’t announce a date for new public pay talks by next Thursday, that they would ballot their members for industrial action.
King said that ICTU had made contact with the Department for Expenditure and made clear that they had “very strong expectations” of discussions, and expected them to happen sooner rather than later.
“Contact is ongoing nearly on a daily basis, so we would expect in coming weeks to get a date for renegotiations.”
Im in the middle of doing an assignment on Bitcoin.
My conclusion after reading – its the greatest bubble since 17th century tulips, but at least when your tulip lost all its value you still had a tulip.
Tulips can’t be instantly sent to the other side of the world for zero cost without using a middle man. You can always get more tulips but bitcoin is finite.
Eh, actually no, you didn’t.
1000000 Bitcoin = 295,278,006,778 Zimbabwe Dollar
I’ve read numerous articles about bitcoin and the more I read, the less I know or understand about it. Almost like a non existent fantasy currency that many will buy into only to lose it all.
You picked an appropriate surname there, David.
Tulips are still a billion euro industry in Holland alone!
Killian, I suspect you didn’t research too hard!
I going to wait to see what Jim Corr had to say about before i buy any.
Is it the currency of the fightback against the rothchilds and their like or a dead duck,no one knows but Jim.
Early days, but this and other crypto currencies and especially the blockchain technology could help us end the financial terrorists grip on humanity..hope so, the future of our planet depends on it
John Do, nope, future of our planet has no dependence on Bitcoin or any other currency. If Man disappeared/went completely bust/whatever tomorrow, the planet would carry on without us. It simply doesn’t matter whether we are here or not. It came into being without us and will still be here long after we’re gone.
Whenever someone says; “It’s to save the planet”, you know they’re talking horse puckey and need a slap.
The journal must have a serious mining rig going on in the office with all these articles about crypto currencies ;-) . Does the the journal accept bitcoin donations I wonder?
I was thinking the same thing myself. I was thinking that the owners of the Journal were possibly early adapters to bitcoin and stand to make a fortune if the value goes up significantly!
Virtual currencies will never work. Card less transactions will work as we are miving that way. But unregulated currencies are silly you you might as well invest in somali dollars lol.
Fools and their money. ……
I think the early/mid 2000s was the time to invest in somali shilling. But if you’re implying that national currencies are volatile, is this not more of a reason to pursue on line currencies?
Hopefully up to $10,000 a coin and I’ll be able to out the feet up for the rest of my life.
It’s the one world currency and the mark if satan
*of
Interesting. I would have thought that any new means of ‘currency’ that would challenge the xxxxxxx’s empire would have been quickly taken down (by all means possible) or taken over or maybe ‘they’ are behind it in the first place.
Two families own over half of the debt/ money that exists today.
Remember, anyone who has moved away from this debt based currency has had a bullet placed in their head.
Dunno.
Remember the sandwich shop rule:
When the guy making your sandwich is talking about buying a commodity, that’s the time to sell all you have and cash out.
“Gee Seamus, silver is really going to go up because of….(insert rationale here).
“So how much silver do you want, Sandwich Man?”
Bitcoin is approaching or has passed that critical indicator, in my opinion.
I started mining bitcoins 4 years ago on 5 old pc’s in my comms room, running 24/7 :) good investment! only problem now is silkroad can’t be trusted and I don’t need a hitman
Bitcoin is AltaVista / BigFoot of the early 90′s. Quarkcoin is the Google of Crypto.
Gold, Silver Crypto…way to go.
Thank you. Head was wrecked thinking I heard of bitcoin in the 90′s. Did I? Cause I’m still not sure because in the article it says bitcoin came out in 2009
I’ll break it down for you. I was making the comparison with the early search engines that died in the 90s. Google trumped the lot later. Other cryptos will trump bitcoin in due course.
This still means I think I heard the words bitcoins years ago
Blah blah blah blah. Bitcoin. Blah blah blah.
Will change the way we trade.biggest invention of mankind since the internet itself.
So if one bitcoin is worth €600 then it makes the cup of coffee in that Canadian coffee shop very expensive. And how do they give you change? Littlebitcoins ?
If you’re sick of bank charges I suggest you read, research Bitcoin, get yourself a wallet (no cost…blockchain.info). Then in a week get yourself €10-€20.
Decimalisation.
The reason why Bitcoin is flourishing is because the financial framework the banks have in place in Ireland are prehistoric. Bitcoin and it’s protocols are the way of the future. Everything is going digital, why should currency be any different.
In the bigger picture the history of the world shows us that governments control is really the control is money. Bitcoin takes done of that control back. But at the same time some regulation is needed for it to become truly mainstream.
Bitcoin gives the power back to the people, it allows trade worldwide and transfer of funds in seconds with virtually no fees and no middle men – that can’t be said about any other currency.
The fact Bitcoin circulation is capped unlike the € which can be printed anytime, the volatility will decrease over time. So although we have seen bubbles, in this case they will deflate – not burst completely.
It takes some time to understand Bitcoin and how it has evolved, the more you learn about it the more you will conclude it’s cutting edge technology at the highest degree.
With multi-million Euro investments throughout the world in this sector and at payments industry in general Bitcoin is here to stay. We are at the beginning of an exciting time – the digital age has really just begun.
Irish Bitcoin Association.
http://www.BitcoinIRL.com
You need a better sales pitch, my friend.
Any currency is finite if the controlling authority so wishes, money supply can be reduced as well as expanded. If bitcoin becomes “mainstream” what exactly would change? I’m genuinely interested. Having an extra/cheaper means of processing cross border transactions is hardly a new earth shattering idea. Trillions of dollars/gbp/eur/chf etc transactions take place “electronically” every day. Transactions costs in high value transactions between financial companies are tiny compared to what high street banks charge. How would bitcoin change that?
I’m over bitcoin, 42coin from here on.
Kittecoin is the new craze now….buy millions
More waffle. Anything to suck the life out of the average person.
I’m adopting a wait and see approach to the currency. I personally feel that it’s not a currency (yet). It is a great online payment system though, and could give PayPal a run for their money.
I do think as well that Bitcoin could be de-throned as the king of the cryptos if someone like Google were to introduce their own coin. It’s very early days in the crypto currency space, and I’m following it very closely.
The next step is Kilobitcoin, then Megabitcon or they might decide to go Bytecoin but an octal based numbering system will take some time to catch on.
There’s already a bytecoin
have your say