More highlights from The Bord Snip Report today -

Reductions to child benefit rate, cutting the €2.5 billion cost of the programme by 20 per cent.

A new Benchmarking of public sector pay with  the possibility of pay cuts and allow comparison of pay rates in the Irish public sector with equivalent posts internationally.

6,930 jobs to go in the education system
6,168 jobs to go from the health service.
(These  reduction in jobs could be achieved without compulsory redundancies)

Revise the income guidelines for the Medical Card to the basic rate of social welfare
Increase the threshold for the Drugs Payment Scheme from €100 to €125 a month .
Medical card holders to pay  €5 for prescriptions

Charges for those presenting at A&E  without a letter from their GP to be increased to €125 from €100 and public hospital inpatient charges be increased by 20%.

The Department of Finance has just published An Bord Snip Nua’s recommendations for around €5.3bn worth of public spending cuts.

The report includes hundreds of proposals  – and a quick glance through it uncovers the following “highlights”

Abolition of the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

A reduction of up to 5% in social-welfare rates.
An increase in the retirement age,
Reduction in the number of Irish embassies
Increases in hospital charges.
A cut of 500 in Defence Forces personnel,.
Amalgamation of small primary schools.
Means tests for home-care packages
Reduced spending on road maintenance.
Abolition of Sports Campus Ireland
Abolition of the Irish Film Board
33% reduction in the number of VECs
Discontinuation of the rural transport scheme

These are all proposals – many of them may never be implemented.

More to come later……!

The  Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes – more commonly referred to as An Bord Snip Nua – will publish it’s report today.

The group  was tasked with identifying 3.5billion euros of cuts in spending – and the government has waited until the long summer Dail recess before agreeing to it’s publication. It is likely to provoke a furious reaction from all sectors. (It will be a surprise if TD pay cuts are proposed by the Bord Snip report . A  100k€ for 103 days in the Dail works out at €1000 per day plus expenses – not bad?)

The report is expected to recommend  re-organisation of many public bodies, such as the merger of some local authorities, enterprise boards and ombusdmans’ offices, along with the abolition of the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

Something drastic has to be done – with the rising jobless tally, predicted to hit 15% or higher;  further shrinkage in gross national product and  credit ratings being downgraded, making borrowing even more expensive.

The two budgets in less than 12 months saw the imposition of levies on wages, levies on pensions for public sector workers and cuts in public spending . But these measures don’t seem to have closed the  gap between what is paid in to government funds  and what is paid out  – the defecit is around 20 billion euros . That means approximately 5 million euros a day is borrowed to make up the difference.

Some really sensitive  areas are the potential cuts in social welfare payments, cuts in allowances to State workers, such as Gardai, and the possible axing of 20,000 public service jobs.

The full details will be released at 2pm today.