"Poor" N. Ireland Folk??????? Yeah Right

warmhands.coldheart

So our MLA's say we need preferential treatment when it comes to cuts because of the legacy of the troubles. high public sector employment... the "special" circumstances we are in.. bla bla bla bla...

Nice to see it hasn't curtailed our personal spending

"The five regions (in the UK) where family spending was above the national average were London, the South East of England, the East of England, Northern Ireland and the South West."

Nice to see we can spend like the wealthier parts of the nation.....
I wish MLA's/People would stop making it out like people in Northern Ireland are somehow deprived..... If they are it's because they are spending their money frivolously... Personally I think people in Northern Ireland are no worse of than anywhere else in the UK.

bingo_bango

warmhands.coldheart wrote: »

So our MLA's say we need preferential treatment when it comes to cuts because of the legacy of the troubles. high public sector employment... the "special" circumstances we are in.. bla bla bla bla...

Nice to see it hasn't curtailed our personal spending

"The five regions (in the UK) where family spending was above the national average were London, the South East of England, the East of England, Northern Ireland and the South West."

Nice to see we can spend like the wealthier parts of the nation.....
I wish MLA's/People would stop making it out like people in Northern Ireland are somehow deprived..... If they are it's because they are spending their money frivolously... Personally I think people in Northern Ireland are no worse of than anywhere else in the UK.

And I wish people like you would educate themselves before spouting drivel. Oh, and it's 'worse OFF'.

NI Child poverty report.

Poverty in NI - General

Snoozle

I'm not sure what I think on this subject, to be honest.

I am certain that salaries here are generally lower than in the rest of the UK, and the job market is saturated with so many highly educated people that its hard to find even a reasonably well paid job. Every single one of my friends is a graduate, and I only know a couple of people who have achieved the holy grail of a 'graduate' level job, and only one of those is actually well paid!

But, on the other hand, it seems that every second person on the roads drives an almost new car, quite often one of the 'luxury' brands, and there are thousands of massive houses popping up all over the countryside, so having money is obviously not confined to just a few elite, its widespread. I don't know where its coming from though!

lazer

Or maybe the families in Northern Ireland spend more because things are more expensive!

Those things being electricity, insurance, holidays

Northern Ireland is a great place to live, however its not easy to save money

Wages are lower and a number of essentials and non-essentials are more expensive than the rest of the UK

If the government really wanted to do something for NI, maybe they should start a campaign whereby Companies can't pay their employess less just because they are based in NI, and if the large UK companies and multinationals started paying comparable wages then the local companies would have no choice but to follow suit!

warmhands.coldheart

lazer wrote: »

Or maybe the families in Northern Ireland spend more because things are more expensive!

Those things being electricity, insurance, holidays..

Rates are a LOT less than the council tax is in UK.
NO water charges as they have in the UK.
NI has some of the CHEASPEST gas prices in the UK.
Considering we have so much "Public Sector" Employment they will be paid the same as any other public sector worker in the UK.
In general I've found Insurance is only a bit more expensive for young drivers. I've lived in the UK and I don't see a massive difference in house insurances or other persoanl insurances like that

So I don't necessarily believe that things are more expensive..

warmhands.coldheart

Snoozle wrote: »

But, on the other hand, it seems that every second person on the roads drives an almost new car, quite often one of the 'luxury' brands, and there are thousands of massive houses popping up all over the countryside, so having money is obviously not confined to just a few elite, its widespread. I don't know where its coming from though!

Would agreee with this 100%. particualarly the BMW 3 Series Brigade....... I believe there are more of these in N. Ireland than any other region of the UK!!

warmhands.coldheart

bingo_bango wrote: »

And I wish people like you would educate themselves before spouting drivel. Oh, and it's 'worse OFF'.

NI Child poverty report.

Poverty in NI - General

Sorry but considering we now only spend under 10% of our annual income on food (Compared to 20 or 30% a generation ago) I wonder where all the remainder goes.... The fact you could fully cloth a child in a new outfit for about £10 in shops like Matalan I'm sorry I find this whole poverty thing hard to swallow.. I've no doubt there are people in genuine poverty but this whole measurment of poverty as relative poverty is cr*p quite frankly. the fact that not being able to take your child on holiday is one of the indicators of poverty is quite frankly a joke.... poverty is not being able to feed your family..... not whether or not you can take them to Euro Disney or buy that new 55" 3D TV

NAR

. . . . and have 40 fags a day and drink nearly every day too. But don't worry the charities will all be asked to give their children their Christmas presents because they are a family in poverty! :mad:

Don't get me wrong there are genuine exceptions for which I have every sympathy, but why is it considered that if you don't have £180-£200pw you are in poverty?

Bangor1

Just a couple of thoughts on this. Firstly about wage gaps with the rest of the UK, I am in a job (private sector, relatively well paid for here but not big bucks) where my exact equivalent in England is on a pay scale that is 18% higher across the board even though they do the exactly same job!

So facts are facts people do get paid a lower salary scale than direct counterparts in England at least in the Private Sector.

But on the other hand, even though I think I am doing ok and try to be careful with my money as I drive my banger to work I get passed on the A2 every day by all manner high spec luxury cars and I see a lot of them heading towards Stormont/Castle Buildings/Dundonald House. Makes me wonder a lot of the time about how badly off people really are and how much the salary differential really comes into play.

One thing is for sure the sooner we break away from the Public Sector dependancy here the better I mean I hate to say it but NICS isn't exactly making the country any money.

36square

NAR wrote: »

. . . . and have 40 fags a day and drink nearly every day too. But don't worry the charities will all be asked to give their children their Christmas presents because they are a family in poverty!

Charities refuse to make any distinction between the deserving and undeserving 'poor' and they'd probably tell you they're doing it for the sake of 'the kiddies'.

lazer

warmhands.coldheart wrote: »

Rates are a LOT less than the council tax is in UK.
NO water charges as they have in the UK.
NI has some of the CHEASPEST gas prices in the UK.
Considering we have so much "Public Sector" Employment they will be paid the same as any other public sector worker in the UK.
In general I've found Insurance is only a bit more expensive for young drivers. I've lived in the UK and I don't see a massive difference in house insurances or other persoanl insurances like that

So I don't necessarily believe that things are more expensive..

We do have water charges - its included in the rates
Rates are indeed a lot less than council tax - however, the services povided are also often inferior too, how good is your council?
Gas is only available in certain areas, others rely on oil or the ultra expensive economy 7 proveded by wonderful NIE

Living in Belfast, the cost living i reasonable since you have access to natural gas, cable phones, various broadband providers etc, however outside of this there is no option in utilities providers, meaning its more expensive!

Car insurance is more expensive for all drivers as the whole of NI is classed as high risk, although the marginal increase is obviously less if your comparing with a high risk area in GB.

Public sector workers are actually paid less than their counterparts in GB, is that not why our teachers went on strike recently?

Whenever i started working in accountancy, Belfast was the lowest paid of all the UK offices, the next lowest was Inverness, where the pay was almost double that of Belfast, abd that is the case in a large number of UK wide firms!

Just because a large number of people in NI buy fancy cars (probably on credit) doesn't mean there are not poor people in NI, maybe the gap between the rich and the poor is just more pronounced, which explains why the spending is above the national average (marginally)

Also for the national average to be an average, some people have to spend more than average!