1000 people surveyed? They must’ve forgot to ring ” the ordinary people” that day. That survey sounds like government generated waffle to me.

A really good sample of people 1000!

Well said Darragh,never heard of Coyne if it were Red C or Landsdowne i might pay attention.Watch out for the usual government supportors, but a 1000 polled the majority agree with us said so we’re right.They agree with survey results when it suits,other times they agrue that polls are only a snapshot in time and meaningless.

Hi Darragh, Ryan and Norman, thanks for your all comments. I’m delighted to see the survey is getting interest! Just to let you know the survey was not paid for by the government or anybody else. We are an independent Market Research company and ran the questions to generate some publicitiy as we are a new company just set up this year. This is why you haven’t heard of us yet! We did not give respondents a choice to choose none of the above or no cuts as it was designed to be a question focussing on the imagined situation of the Irish people having control of the budget and what they would choose to cut if they had to make a difficult decision. We use the same panel as all other research companies in Ireland (including RedC and Lansdowne) and the survey is of 1,000 people so it is statistically reliable and genuine. If you have any questions on the survey, just reply and we will get back to you asap!

Hi Coyne research, I’d be interested in hearing how you chose your questions. Did you ask people whether they thought the budget for Dail expences should be cut? Or then senate abolished to make savings? Just generally give us an idea of why you chose the questions you did.

@coyne . So the survey basically asked the doomsday question . To use an analogy , would you rather die by the chair or lethal injection and no option to say ” id rather live thank you ” .

You are a new company looking for publicity :-) All i can say is that releasing from what i can see is a skewed poll to such an important question is not a good start. I’m sure Enda will hire you guys , he loves giving people no choice !!

Hi Niall,
As Cloyne Research has responded by saying, the survey asked respondents to choose from a limited number of options so they could try to draw meaningful conclusions from the research. I think the purpose of the survey was to find out how much support exists for each option that is likely to be considered in the real Budget in 2013.
If respondents were given open-ended questions then there would be no way of gauging how popular/unpopular potential measures are – which wouldn’t be of as much interest, I think.
Obviously we’d all like it if there were no cuts at all but, given that there will be, it’s a good idea to sound out how people feel – wouldn’t you agree?

Hi Paul, thanks for your question. The list of options used was compiled after reading through a mix of media reports and online chatter on potential budget cuts that would impact the Irish population. Abolition of the senate or cutting TD’s expenses did not fall under this remit – i.e. they would not impact on the general public. The objective was to see which option was the best of a bad lot.

@Niall, I understand your analogy but we did want to keep the research realistic. Unfortunate as it is, it seems that there will be cuts like those researched which will be implemented in the next budget. The objective was to get an idea of the ordinary person’s choices if they had control.

Coyne research I think it irresponsible to cause controversy in order to gain publicity for yourselves. The reporting of the story is misleading and that may be due to the author and not yourselves. The survey is described above as the Irish adult’s ‘fantasy budget’ and ‘the imagined situation of the Irish people having control of the budget and what they would choose to cut’. It was based though on decisions the government is making and merely a survey on the respondents attitudes towards those decisions.

Couple of things wrong with your comment,but i’ll only enlighten you on one.As a member of the EU we signed up to free movement of all citizens of the EU.You have the right like any other citizen in the EU to seek work and a life in any other EU country.BTW under rules brought in the last couple of years,you must have paid into the SW system for a minimum of 2 years before you can claim,this applies to all except Irish nationals and aslyum seekers.

Just in regard to the child allowance I don’t think there would be any question of you not recieving it. The figure Joan Burton had in mind was 100,000 euro cut off.

Sounds great, aside from the EU issue would that mean that non-nationals wouldn’t have to pay PRSI? Would that mean that I’d get back all the PRSI I have paid? Would it also mean that Irish nationals in other countries would have to abide by the same rules?

Will be careful what you wish for. how many Irish will get sent home from other coentries?

What if every other country then sent Irish people home for the same reason….have you any idea of the amount of Irish that are overseas , you might think it a simple solution to simply send ” non nationals” off the island but if the US Canada Uk Australia sent Irish back home …be careful what ya with for I’d say

Two weeks in a row? So any sort of decent holiday would be out of the question.

Or a bad illness.

Exactly… Who’s looking out for joe the plumber

Well someone looked out for Paddy the plasterer..

So 48% would introduce avalue based property tax.1 in 8 will increase their spend next year witha higher incidence in Dublin.Well if a property based tax is levied i’m afraid 8 in 8 in Dublin will be spending alot more than their country cousins.Why, houses in Dublin are worth alot more simples.

I wonder what the demographic for the survey was ? Of course if you are in large percentage of unemployed you would answer yes ! Of course of you are in the low payed sector you answer yes !

There is a certain amount of Irish begrudgery in the choice for some people . Why should a working mother and father earning 100k a year lose the benefit and a family on welfare for the last ten years get it. It comes back to one basic principle and that is the harder you work the less you get and the more your punished .

What they should do is restrict it to two children and after that you are on your own .

A sample of 1000 gives statistically meaningful results and the respondents sure chosen at random. When it come to Elections these guys are remarkably accurate. You cannot reject and debase its finding because you dislike them.

So 850 out of 1000 people think social welfare should not be cut?? I don’t believe that for a second. I have never come across a single friend/colleague/family member etc who thinks it should be left as is. It’s a ridiculously generous allowance and compared to the UK it’s a gift!

@Niall – the cost of living in the UK is also a lot less over there. The Government should be tackling the real issues in reducing the cost of living, then they could benchmark the dole against the cost of living, then people would have more disposable income as the cost of living comes down. Then more money is spent in the local economies.

People forget that most of England is a lot cheaper to live than here, that the Social welfare over there, adds up to a good amount when all the differing strands are added up.

The most important thing they forget is that much of urban England is a decrepit, run down sink estate that would not be out of place in 1980’s Poland, but with very high levels of crime.

All the countries that are bailing us out have a common feature, they are all strong social democracies, they look after the welfare of their country and people.

They aren’t like FG and FF here who are out at every turn to make a quick buck for themselves or their buddies/donors and don’t care how much it damages the country.

Can I be the first to say, somewhat sardonically, “Oh no, the Unions would never stand for it.”

All valid sensible points, so I’d suspect all will be completely ignored!

@damocles therein lies our problem. unions chiefs have been milking their members for the past 15 years.

labour have nothing to worry about – most union members hate them know

Couldn’t agree more Bruce.

@Bruce. Add this one, too. Flat rate VAT across everything except financial transactions.

The long term dole no’s in Ireland over the last ten years were the lowest in Europe.

I think it is socially and personally destructive for a 2o year old not to work, when their is work going. There is not work going at the moment.

Apart from the social concern, my worry about the welfare being cut is that it allows the skewed system we have of protecting the top from being subjected to realistic wages, realistic taxes, accountability before the law. That they, for the first time in the history of this state are in it with the rest of us.

If you do not reform the culture on protecting the gombeens in this state, then you are only guaranteeing the inevitability of the next collapse, biding time, till the chance presents it self once more for their yes men to do the same all over again.
http://photos4.pix.ie/7D/ED/7DEDDEAECD614BF6A52D5F53690D18D1-0000333355-0002631443-00800L-D7539F89150B4E8BA3FCC32ADA4399B9.jpg

You could have warned us about that link Arjun, my eyes feel dirty now!

Link comes with a warning!.

Side effects including but not limited to: Nausea, weight-loss, weight-gain, anxiety, elevated blood pressure, flashbacks, soft landings but broken tail bones.

I agree Norman. Who was involved in choosing the loaded questions I wonder?

Not sure what cutting pay in the private sector will have to do with anything. In the private sector if you don’t perform you get let go, if you don’t perform you don’t get pay increases. We are not borrowing money to pay for the private sector

Chris i’m in the private sector too,said it instead of being challenged on it.

If like you say dole was cut after two years, with no available work what would 450,000 people do for basic needs ??

Not true Finabar.

Take for example Holland, where you get the dole for 2 years at 80% of you salary. So here for the average wage that would equate to a 538 a week before tax.

After the 2 years, you can go in to work fare, where you get a wage and where you spend the whole time, digging up pavements and laying them down again.

It is not that hard to get out of though by all accounts and many do, living on welfare their for years.

So if you want us to step up to the European welfare system, then unemployment benefit will rise substantially here.

The long term dole sponger in Ireland, for all the hand wringing and moaning for the last 15 years was among the lowest in Europe, that might not be a popular fact in the pub on a Friday night when someone is preaching from the pulpit but a fact nonetheless.

and this is a country that is bailing us out, has a much higher standard of living, public health care where even the right wing political parties would be further left economically than Sinn Féin or labour.

Cutting social welfare, whatever the pro’s, if any has one big problem. It takes money directly out of circulation, the dole money doesn’t exactly go to buying German cars. It goes in to the local economy, virtually all of it. The tax man gets it back, the local business man gets it back.

Will we ever see you comment on the rates that accounts charge in this country, the extortion on small business, all businesses that the legal profession engage in. The fees of doctors etc.

The guy at the top in Ireland, just loves pulling up the ladder and screwing the rest of the country for all they can.

Dunbar. It’s your type that have the country bolloxed.

@arjun why circulate money that has to be borrowed at crazy rates?

Guess your were wrong,alot of early risers huh?

it be so much easier and less expensive just to shoot them in the queue and have Ireland changed to the Stephen Church Elite Club

Ohh i wish sherbet, where theres no dole , all the borders are closed to anyone without a company sponsoring them , and tax rates are below 10% because theres no spongers to waste our money , the words minimum wage and trade union are unknown , where my tax money isnt spent letting some little brat go studying anthropology and greek philosophy only to whinge afterwards that theres no jobs in that field ahh paradise

ahh stephen think about one of your points on what your saying ..No spongers …that’s not all the people on the dole…….. it’s all the politicians, and their advisory teams and ( remember they get a pension too ) and they not claiming the dole.
and the brat you refer to is probably one of the above kids whom are studying
trade unions have always been know as a necessary evil and have saved no jobs but their own in this country purely because they have never been challenged by the people whom pay their wages ( a lot of those on the minimum wages cause they told they not allowed to)

so i still don’t want the isle of SCEC but do agree you should pay into a country before claiming out of it. and that’s not all the involving the boarders there are people claiming hall their lives off the state and have never worked a day in their lived and they born and bred IRISH.

This nation is suited for planning, preparation and forward thinking. Its the Government that are incapable of this. I for one. I for one am planning and preparing for new Taxes and Cuts by saving as much money as possible and spending as little as possible. As for forward thinking, the Government is thinking about Christmas Holidays already I would imagine :-) but that as forward as they go.