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DENIS O’BRIEN’S DIGICEL is to launch a “massive push” for greater market share and more products this year and will invest €500 million in its network.
In an interview with the Financial Times (subscription required), the telecoms billionaire said that 2014 will see “great opportunities to go for more market share and new products”.
O’Brien also confirmed that the Caribbean and Central American based provider which will not be entering Europe, a market he described as being hurt by “failed policy”.
The Financial Times report that Digicel is expected to pay a $650m dividend to O’Brien but that O’Brien told them that it “hasn’t been paid yet”.
O’Brien founded Digicel in 2001 and the provider now operates in 31 markets and is estimated to have over 13 million customers. O’Brien took full control of Digicel in 2007 and the company’s profits topped $1 billion for the first time in 2012.
As well as its significant share in the Caribbean and Central American mobile markets, Digicel also has operations in the Pacific Islands and has targeted expansion in Asia.
The company suffered a setback in this plan last year, when it was part of a consortium that failed in its bid to win one of two national mobile phone licences in Myanmar.
O’Brien is also the founder and owner of media company Communicorp and is the largest shareholder in Independent News & Media.
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I sought work recently that was part time. I rang up the welfare office to ask them if I could somehow work part time and receive welfare to make up the difference? They said no. However, I can go and be somebody’s slave ( internship ) for 9 months and get 50 euro extra on the dole.
You can go and gain experience while the state gives you free money? Surely that’s a great deal? Why would you be allowed work and collect a dole at the same time anyway?
Free money Fay ? How do you know this guy hasn’t been working and paying tax all his life ?
Yeah I am sure experience in flipping burgers for 9 months will look great on the CV. I would much rather be put working part time, then in the meantime having the state make up the difference. I would be less of a burden on the tax payer and this could give me the chance in the meantime to search for another part time job to make up the difference in having a full time one seeing as the FT positions are not that plentiful at the moment. Even so, most FT positions are actually giving less wages than the dole. This is the welfare trap and its doing a lot of damage to families. During the boom years the politicians were giving us more money on the dole in order to get our vote. Now that those years are finished, they are afraid to take it off us because they will lose our vote. In fact, when cuts come to the dole in these recessional times the same politicians who gave us all this in the boom times give out about it but again its only the get your vote. They manipulate the welfare system in order to get our votes, creating a nation of spoilt brats who now are clinging to freebies and now have a sense of entitlement to everything rather than getting out to work for the bread. Its irritating but that’s socialism for ya, making everyone equally poor since it was established.
Ah @fay, your ignorance is bliss! What “free money” do you speak of, and where is this “great deal”?? And why don’t you understand why someone who lost their job, is on the dole, wants to work, can only seek part time work but if they take the part time job themselves or their family are less better off! You should try being unemployed and see how ya cope! But I admire your ignorance, I wish I didn’t have this “great deal” of experience being unemployed having worked all my life!
You dont have a clue fay
Im just going to take a ‘free’ shower & clean my crack. It wont be free for much longer (more taxes). Give Fay a break, shes having a bad hairday
“Most FT positions are giving less money than the dole” – how so? At 35h pw, the dole pays less than a fiver an hour.
Even with tax and levies, very much doubt you’d come in with less than a fiver an hour net.
Look social welfare payments is there to assist you while you find other full/part time employment. Its not a career move, why anyone would expect the exchequer to “make up the difference” is beyond me. If flipping burgers pays your bills then that’s what you need to do.
I wouldn’t work at anything as long as I got a fair wage. Time for some people to put pride aside and take the jobs available.
Part time and on the dole. You expected the high life didn’t you.
What about transport, childcare, usc, medical costs mortgage etc there isn’t much left when u work either
Stiofan, the role of capitalism is to create as few jobs as possible at the lowest wage possible in order to maximize profit. And you belive socialism is responsible for our current unemployment crisis. Have you really thought this through?
And what do you classify as a fair wage?? Compared to Europe we are on very generous pay .Ever hear of the German Harz 4 or 1 euro job???Not many people in Ireland have.Somone offers you a job in Germany and you are on the dole you have to take it even if it is just one euro per hour!!!
Would any Irish person work for a euro per hour???Thing is,you are not killed with stealth taxes,have a efficent public service and transport network,and the cost of living relative to here is lower,so you could manage.But not here in Ireland.
by and large anyone who says this is a lifestyle choice should go and try it for a year and see how they manage.
After I got made redundant 5 years ago like everyone else I signed on and in the mean time signed up with some agencies for temp work, Everything was going grand the days I worked the welfare did not pay me the days I didnt they did till my stamps ran out after 12 months.
That is when the welfare crowd called me in for a means test, What they told me was from now on every day that I worked €80 would be stopped from my payment, I tried to explain that some days the agency would only have 3/4 hours work, And that I wouldn’t earn €80 for the hours worked not to mention petrol& tolls to be thrown in.
They did not give a flying f**k I then said to them that I would be better off not working and they kind of agreed with me, And as for up skilling didn’t get a € of the f**kers ended up re skilling my self to the tune of 6k.
Did you get the 6k by saving from social welfare payments
Eh no I had some savngs and also got money back from the revenue
Rehabmeercat,
No one on welfare can save money. Could you save 6k on €188 a week?
Incorrect… It depends on your circumstances and you used the minimum payment
Rehabmeerkat
FG/Labour Spokeskat, and official bullsh1tter.
Rehabmeercat….again u show tour ignorance… 188 is not the minimum payment on social welfare – as you correctly stated it depends on your circumstances but for single person under 23 it is €100.
Considering the dole for a single person is around 10k PA no one could save more than half that within a year, From my own personal experiences I struggled at times with f**k all work for weeks and all I was entitled to was the dole and nothing else.
Now as for all people that are unemployed drink in pubs everyday of the week, That is some bullsh*t right wing crap how can someone getting just 188 a week drink every day me thinks that who ever spouts this crap doesn’t know the price of drinks.
Great to see a report stating some truths about aspects of the social welfare system. Definitely in need of reform but political parties are afraid to address. More taxes for those working is not the answer to support the excessive welfare system.
Gosh Life is a funny old thing. The country was going great guns a few years ago And then one morning, a couple of years back almost half a million people woke up and decided they didnt want to work anymore!
They ALL thought they’d rather go on Social Welfare and go hungery and cold. Deny themselves and their families the few little luxuries they might have enjoyed while they were working.
No one but an idiot would prefer to be on Welfare. There are too many people depending on Welfare for them ALL to be lazy and spongers!
100% agree
You’re spot on Tom. The working people are getting squeezed badly by the government to support our welfare system and the banking bailout. Gap between take home pay and welfare is getting smaller by the year and in many cases people are better off unemployed. Government dont seem to want to reform major as it may unsettle people. Whilst I agree that many people genuinely need social welfare, there are many who are taking advantage if the system with no intention to find employment. It’s the same people that weren’t bothered working when jobs were plentiful and this genuinly makes me angry. They should be cut off altogether and be made swim themselves. The choices they would have to make then might force them into a job!
welfare haha,hit them,the needy the hungry,the old!!!!!!my arse.Look at politicians pensions,past and present!Start with them first idiots instead of hitting the above.
@ Tom: This idea that there were thousands upon choosing to be unemployed during the Celtic Tiger just doesn’t add up. Between 2002 and 2007, the unemployment rate was around 4.4%. (p36)
The long-term unemployment rate was even lower at around 1.4% between 2002 and 2008. (p.37) The reality is even in a time of plenty like the Celtic Tiger there’s always going to be people unemployed in this case a minority. It’s just a fact of life.
That there’s loads of people choosing to be unemployed in a recession when there’s a serious shortage of jobs makes even less sense.
isn’t this a low wage trap not welfare trap
Or maybe the problem is welfare sos o high that employers can’t contend to offer much better for low-skill work… Depends which way you look at it….
Not necessarily, Steve, cos some people can only work part time…even with a decent wage, part time hours are not enough considering the loss of not only cash but rent supplement, and cost of travel to work , possible childcare etc might be worth it for single person, but i worked out that i would have to earn at least 15 euros per hour on thirty hours per week to just break even. With no quals i wouldn’t earn any ways near that. So i decided to go back to college this year and i stand to lose about 300 per month doing that, more if they cut the student grant.but it is a cut i am going to have to take if i am ever to have any possibility of getting out of the poverty trap….who can afford that when raising a family?
Not exactly. Take the hours issue. My partner got a part time job (2 days) recently and we loose 29.50 per day she works. This is upto 11 hours. As her shift is 12hours we “loose” an extra day as even 1 hour over the 11 is considered another day! So each shift we loose €59.
Compare that to her friend who works three 8 hour shifts at the same place and looses €29.50 only. They both work 24 hours per week!
It is almost not worth our while having her work at this rate. The cost of lunch and transport is entirely negating any take home pay.
We get on with it but the Dept needs to be more flexible with people who are actually trying.
Rent allowance etc..should also all be means tested. Simples. Base it on income rather than the cost of the rent as that’s being scammed big time with people getting two contracts: one for the HSE and the “real” one. If it’s a means tested payment people can still only rent what they afford.
Imagine though @alwyn that a person on over 33K pays over 50% tax to fund your rent, travel and kids while having to work and pay for all those things for themselves with their remaining 16.5K. Something wrong there if one person can have that entire lifestyle for nothing and another has to work so hard for the same….
Fay there was always a scrounger element to the dole even during the boom. However many of us currently on State assistance were the very people paying 50% in tax from their over 33k salaries until we were made redundant.
The State has no trouble handing this cash to the Trioka when asked. I welcome back to work schemes and am currently starting my own business. However there are massive disparities in the system that ensure those with the most seem to get the extra and those with little keep loosing out and driven into further poverty.
Fay you clearly have a problem with people on the dole. While there are people who abuse the system there are Leo people that have lost their jobs and been forced onto the dole. Get off your high horse and stop tarring everyone with the same brush. You have no idea of these people’s circumstances. Don’t be so judgemental !!
The entire public system is about 7-8 years behind the conditions of today. The public sector wage bill is inflated due to benchmarking undertaken about a decade ago. This took wage levels from the private sector in the boom and set the public wages & welfare allowances to the same level. Since then the private sector wages have reduced by 50% on average. So, it makes more sense for people to stay on welfare then to try to get back into the private sector, or public sector with a proper job. People say that it’s a case that private sector jobs are paying too little and that makes it less viable, but the truth is that the entire public system hasn’t adjusted properly to the downturn. Public sector wages are still highly inflated, and the argument against this tends to be that they reflect the cost of living. The reality though is that the public sector is in fact what’s inflating the cost of living. There is such a mass of public employees still getting paid the same, that it has meant that retailers haven’t needed to reduce prices. If the public sector was to reduce the wage bill in line with the private sector, the cost of living would decrease, the rate of taxation would decrease, the disparity between welfare & part time jobs would decrease. But this would be far too much of a challenge and so against popular opinion that no politician would ever consider even just thinking about it, for fear of being lynched by the welfare class and the unions senior public servants.
Just a small point.. Rent supplement is means tested.
It’s just that some of the restrictions are applied universally when they don’t work that way in real life.
Wtf you on about mike el, public pay and working conditions have been disimproved drastically since 2008. But trying to explain that to a person wearing blinkers like you would be a total waste of time so I won’t bother. Maybe the reason prices haven’t fallen since 2008 is that the greedy owners of businesses in the private sector are overcharging like they good throughout the Celtic tiger. You know what I mean 300 grand for a badly built semi d in a small Irish town, 5 euro for coffee and a snarl.
@ Mike El you are no economist that’s for sure. I don’t think you could come across more confused if you tried…
I’m not sure those figures add up Fay. A person on €35,000 takes home a whole lot more than €16,500 per year. Unless you were exaggerating for dramatic effect…
@fay…..no one is funding my tent as i don’t get rent supplement. Who is funding my travel?? I don’t see anyone handing me money when i fill up my car….the one i bought to get me to an internship 20 miles away cos i thought said internship might help me to get a job….boy was i wrong. All i see is the government taking from people who are trying their best…child benefit cut, carers payments cut…..Fay…what cuts did you take that u couldn’t afford? Now granted…rhere are people who are taking and not even trying to get back. I have been trying to get back to work and even when i do find a job, however menial, i am meeting opposition at every corner. If i work less than 19 hours i cant get fis….if i work more than 15 hours ( or study) i lose carers allowance…AND have to pay childcare. I cant win whatever i try to do! I didn’t plan on being a single parent with a disabled child….it was the hand i was dealt… And i am trying my best. And people like Fay want to call me a scrounge? Maybe u think i should give up my child to so i would be less of a burden ? Even that option was offered but excuse the F*** out of me for trying to be a responsible parent.
Ah the Internet, where you can have an opinion about social issues, and people feel the appropriate response is to attack you personally. The problems we have aren’t to do with sites like ask.fm, its that we as adults provide an example to kids every day that instead of debating topics and respecting the opinions of others, we make personal attacks when we don’t agree with them.
Agree Fay…. People on welfare forget others are paying for it….
Amazing how many people still fall for the whole divide and conquer routine
@ Mike El Why would people respect your opinions when they clearly aren’t based in reality.
@rehabmeer……some people on welfare HAVE paid for it. Not everyone on wf has been on it all their lives…..some people have actually worked and contributed to the system…
@alwyn… Agree
But welfare should be linked to your total tax , scaling back over a period of years. Say you get 70% of your avg wage if you lose your job for year one… 50% year two … Down to a nominal payment after 3years
But that doesn’t negate Fays point.
There is a sense of entitlement among some on welfare, and it is over generous to the point that there is no incentive to return to the labour market.
Most of the commentary is about how much people would lose… That in itself shows the system is over generous
Rehabmeerkat,
As far as I’m aware you get job seekers benefit for the first year or two and then you are switched to jobseekers allowance.
The difference being that Jobseekers benefit is â¬188 per week, Jobseeker’s Allowance is means tested and so may less depending on your circumstances (eg, if your partner or spouse is working).
In fact, most things that end in allowance rather than benefit are means tested and not taxed. Whereas benefits are taxable.
Mike el I don’t agree with any of your first comment. This is not a private v public sector discussion. It is to with do with the welfare trap. Not the public sectors enormous pay. Seriously we’re loaded. Especially cause we all have time machines and travel back to benchmarking days.
Yes @Eoghan, her math is as dramatic as her intellect, sorry her lack of intellect about what it’s like for people who are unemployed! She likes to stereotype….
My hoop . I paid taxes for many years as did all my family. Probably paid for most on here child be edit maybe even yours. Your schooling your roads your Gardai your hospitals . Now for the last two years I need to be on carers to look after my son. Despite his disabilities and his medical issues I worked for the first twelve years of his life . Now his needs are too high so I can’t . Maybe I should hand him over to the state where his care would cost double what I get to look after him . I have never gotten rent allowance or mortgage interest supplement but I do get carers and frankly I paid enough into this state to get this welfare payment now. By the way I work 24/7 looking after my son. So I work for my payment.
Exactly Catherine, there’s too many too quick to take a snipe at those who aren’t working and reliant on welfare, forgetting that the majority who are reliant on welfare really would prefer not to be. There may be some people who are happy to live on so little, obviously they don’t aim that high (or they have something undeclared on the side).. The majority on welfare are just about scraping by, and all this stomping on them by people who are being quite frankly, snobbish, about having jobs is getting quite tiresome.
@Catherine Sims……yes i agree….it is high time people and the state recognise how much money carers are saving the state, and what do they get in return? More cuts to their payments…. Cuts to services…..i am glad you were able to work for a while Catherine and i wish you and your son the best. You deserve every penny you can get and don’t let anyone make you think or feel otherwise.
Alwyn working for a long time before his birth too he was my last child. Paid for my degree . No freebies there either and my son got his first medical card three years ago before that I paid for everything. I live in hope to get into the work force but technology moves on so fast I am afraid my skills will be out of date plus I am not getting. It’s hard getting a job in your twenties but next to impossible in your forties or fifties. Ageism is alive and kicking. I would also like to point out that many if us give if our time voluntarily to charities and such too while we are not working. I always do when I can but being on welfare means I can only do it if its approved by the department and only for a certain number of hours a week. I don’t have any time these days for it though. We are not wasters not career welfare scourges . We are a diverse group if people all caught by different circumstances claiming benefit. As Shanti says only a small group are die hard dolers are long term career unemployed. Boom or bust
Good on you for making the sacrifice necessary to change things for yourself!
Fat, you obviously have no idea how the tax system works, if you think someone earning 33k pays 16.5k in tax. It’s only earnings over the 33k that are taxed at that sort of rate
That wouldn’t work for graduates who haven’t had the chance to work for long and pay that many taxes
Hear hear Shanti! Gotta love common sense
Rent is the problem here, especially in Dublin. If it wasn’t for outrageous levels of rent, then all kinds of work would become economically viable. A single person working for €20k or less, if they’re living alone, is just working to pay a landlord. Not wanting to do that is completely understandable, if not perhaps desirable.
The lost lenore
How about house share costs about €4500 to €5000 annually for a room
Chopstix, I think you’ll find that figure is now floating towards the 6k mark. And two points. Firstly, if you’re working forty hours a week a roof over your head and your own bathroom isn’t too much to expect? I thought we’d done away with the whole tenement concept. Also house shares aren’t available to everyone nor are they suitable for everyone.
Dublin is heading back towards Manhattan levels of rent and nothing is being done about it because I’d take an educated guess that most of our elected representatives are up to their necks in buy to let property themselves. For the younger demographic that are lucky enough to be working, rent is as big or a bigger burden than taxation. I’d also say it’s the main disincentive towards moving off welfare in many cases.
And of course there’s the whole issue of what everyone renting does when they retire. Even a good pension won’t cover the cost of a one bed apartment in Dublin these days. Political agitation on this issue was one of the few good things to have come out of left wing politics over the years. Sadly, it seems to have fallen off the agenda.
I agree – the rent in Dublin is crazy. Large rents reduce your ability to save which makes it even hard to get a mortgage. My boyfriend and I trying to save for our own home and while we could afford the mortgage repayment because it is less than our rent, it has been very difficult trying to save for the deposit. We live near where we both work so if we were to move somewhere cheaper the petrol cost getting to work eat into the rent saving. Its a catch 22
Was made redundant. Decided to do a part time course to enable be a better chance of getting employment and wanted to work part time, but was told I would’t be able to get the funding to finish the course and my benefit would be cut. I can get a good “internship” if I have experience and a good list of qualifications. Its an absolute dire system and those internships are degrading for an extra €50 a week! Oh and it doesn’t matter about those great internships, because if I get one, I will be deemed as working and won’t be able to finish my course! So frustrating!!
From my own experience i recently returned to work and when you factor in creche costs and running a car to work 5 days a week i am actually worse off working.it’s crazy and needs to change because there are loads of people who refuse to work for these reasons.
It’s a career move for too many so welfare has to be trimmed so that work becomes a better paying one.
As the article states salaries have for most people also dropped. The problem is that the cost of living has not dropped and has for a number of things increased. FG said they were going to introduce a low cost economy they failed to mention that would only be wage related and have nothing to do with the cost of living in Ireland.
Think that’s a false assertion. The reality is the vast majority of people on the live register are not there by choice, they’re there because of a shortage of jobs. The gov is happy to engage in welfare-bashing because it distracts from the reality that their job plans have largely come to nothing.
32 unemployed for each vacancy according to NERI. http://www.nerinstitute.net/blog/2013/07/15/over-thirty-unemployed-people-for-each-vacancy/
Over 7000 people applied for 120 HMV jobs recently, almost 60 applications per vacancy. http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/retail-and-services/hmv-to-open-four-stores-in-early-september-1.1502734
Career move? Living on 100 euro pw and paying 30 of that in rent? And the rest to cover electricity food etc . I would hate to see YOUR career aspirations Morticia! Try it and then tell me its a career move.
Here’s hoping all the smug self righteous so and so’s on here never lose their jobs or get an illness or become disabled. Lets see how they would cope . Most are talking about things they know nothing about. Paying taxes which is something you are required to do by law does not give you the right to call people names and make incorrect assumptions about their lives or intentions .
Its incredible how giving an Irish person a job is enough to send them to some la-la land where no recession, toxic banks and corrupt politicians exist. Might I suggest that those of you riding the high horse take some time to maybe buy a newspaper instead of blowing all your wages on brain wasting substances at the weekend.
Just another aspect of our new serfdom. Keep all serfs in place, control and minimise their income. Keep them on the shelf till needed and then squeeze them for every penny when they do start earning again. Even screw them out of their pensions or investments at a later stage. Let a few rise upward occasionally, and dangle that carrot in front of the rest. Let them think they are in a liberal democracy (the biggest lie) and keep them sedated on reality shows, the premiership and MTV. Bright futures are always around the corner, new medicine and technology to fix all. Blame the past on religion, on underdevelopment and ignorance. The truth is nothing has changed in the last thousand years, nor will it.
Put them to work – tidying the estates, cutting the grass, fixing, painting etc.
If they don’t do it cut the welfare.
As has been pointed out before – there are people paid to do these jobs as is, so by making those on the dole do these jobs, you create a situation where they are made redundant and forced to do their old job for substantially less money..
So what happens to those that are employed performing the above tasks?
And don’t suggest rock breaking instead…. there are hard working machines for doing that!
Wasterism the biggest trap of all
For fuc* sake this welfare state is a joke. Sick of paying for immigrants and assylum seekers and lazy ass irish people . Sick of it.
Well then feel free to pi*s off somewhere there is no welfare system…. I suggest China.
Great bunch of lads.
Joey probably paying for your phone too am I ?
Yep… And it workz great.
Me & all my immigrant / fugee buddies love the phone you paid for us.
Again… Much love & appreciation for all your hard work, you racist ass!
It’s now socially acceptable to be on welfare.
Before you would take a job even if it ment losing some money, as people would be to proud to accept a handout and would do anything to be on welfare.
*off welfare
Its also pragmatism.
No point losing money and those you care for suffering for the sake of pride.
As someone mentioned above… This is as much a ‘low-wage trap’ as a ‘welfare trap’.
Is this based on personal experience?
The banks were certainly not too proud to accept 100 billion of welfare from the Irish people.
@Alwyn … Anyone over 40 knows what I mean. You think this a tough … You should have seen 80s Ireland, 18% mortgages and 25% unemployment
And the inside elite funneling countless millions offshore to evade tax while the ordinary citizen made up the shortfall. The good old days.
@rehab…….again you make assumptions….i did see 80′s Ireland. I was working and paying tax as well as getting an education in 80′s Ireland….back when i could afford to do all those things.
blah blah ..in my day kids….! From personal experience anyone I know banging on about 80s Ireland really hasn’t been hit in this recession – try living the daily struggle that many families are currently facing and then tell me it’s not that bad! I know a massive amount of people that had to leave Ireland during the 80s for work – then Ireland started booming and these people thought great, we can finally move back home and settle down with our families – buy a house, put the past behind us and finally be settled somewhere – only to be shafted again! Seems those hit badly in the 80s are the ones being punished once again – and so the cycle goes on!
It isnt as simple as cutting the dole though because there are people who depend solely on that to provide for their families and driving them deeper into poverty solves nothing.
They could start by catching the dole cheats and incentivising people to return to work
Social welfare goes on your prsi earnings if u have any….like a lot of people I was unfortunate in loosing my job forcing me to get welfare for the very first time in my life…. I finally found a part time job (20 hours p.w) yes I would have been better off staying on welfare as I would have got rent allowance medical card education allowance etc but I choose not to for the sake of my sanity but I can fully understand why some people would stay on welfare rather then work as you loose a he’ll of a lot… Despite only working part time I am not entitled to any part time scheme which is crazy considering I earn under €200 p.w… So fay, as a lot of ppl said don’t tarnish all welfare people with same brush.. Some of them have no choice….
social welfare is by no means a career pathway..for those of us on it know we are steuggling to get by each week…many of those weeks we find ourselves being behind on rent etc..whatever dimwits on this are saying that the jobs bridge thing is free money..that is pure BS!!! i recently seen an internship as a bar person for 9 months..of course the job spec had some snappy catchy words to make potential candidates think this was amazing…to me i think something such as that is demoralizing..at the end of these internships the percentage of people kept on is minature…and where do they end up again..of course back on the dole..when applying for a job its the person with the years of experience getting the jobs..many of these internships do not even relate to our career paths. just becoming an easy way of companies to get “free” labour and recruit skivys thus not having to employ a person with a salary. the culture in this country is gone to frig
I’ve decided to go back to college, using “Back to education allowance”. They’re cutting my money by 30 Euro when I start. Where’s the incentive?
Where as “damo the dole scrounge” down the road keeps his 188 Euro benefit for sitting on his bollocks?
Not to mention the cut of the one off allowance that helped with books etc. You would be better keeping your file and applying for grant …oh wait never mind, they want to cut that this year too!
But don’t you get your fees paid for and the grant (not sure if they scrapped getting both)?
I’ve to pay my own fees. I’m not entitled to a grant as its a Plc.
Minimum wage less 10% and no allowances which are not available to workers seems to be a fair handout for those who have never held a job. A fairer system for people who have a track record of working has to be worked out, maybe allow them to take the jobs that the dossers won’t do and top up the take home to a percentage of previous earnings ? A hand up ,not a hand out system.
Isn’t that what ce scheme, fas, tus and internships essentially are??? By the way, can anyone tell me where to get those rose glasses half of ye seem to be wearing…..thats obviously what i have been lacking all this time!
If I was geting 65k per year plus expenses that can be 50k in the Senad then I wouldn’t work either….forgot to mention 3 months paid holiday as well.
A person working part time 3 days per week – 8h/day (24h total) can still claim Jobseeker’s Allowance for the days not working. A person working part time 4 days per week – 4h/day (16h total) cannot claim anything as the rule says that you have to work no more than 3 days to qualify for Jobseeker’s Allowance support. This is one of the traps that doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s simply stupid.
While wages have been dropping these last few years in the private sector because of the lack of demand in the free market,we have now reached a truly ridiculous stage in this country when employers cant compete with the all the freebees handed out by the welfare state, this has to be the reason the country is still borrowing 1 billion euro a month even as we are in bail out to the IMF for the forseeable future,by any yardstick this is off the wall economics.
Not really.
There are many other reasons why the Government borrow 1 billion per annum.
Ireland’s spend on welfare is about 14% of the value of the economy, which is quite low by western standards.
(comparing to 22% in the UK & 27% in Germany.
At this point the primary reason for the Governments condinued deficit is debt interest repayements.
The “Primary deficit” is down to around 5 billion.
However, like me, the incentive is that you can be getting an education that you contributed to and that u will hopefully use to better your future so you can red thumb all the self righteous idiots on here that think we are scroungers!
Apologies…..this was meant to post in reply to A.G. below.
Ok who keeps moving things around???? Getting dizzy lol.
No wonder everybody is screwing the system!
*sorry.. Keeping your dole
have your say