@Jason: haha BRILLIANT reply!

@Jason: ** you

@Jason: well done you can’t argue with the points so you highlighted the spelling.

@GrumpyAulFella: excellent.

@Miller: I completely disagree with everything you said. So your plan would be to de-skill nurses and hope to save on taxes. Maybe replace & doctors with car mechanics too? It’s practically the same job right? Fixing something that’s broken!! Maybe taxis instead of Ambulance???

@Miller: The country pays 16 million a day to service a debt it never owed. It can pay bondholders all they are owed. It allows the banks and vulture funds to pay no tax on their profits. It can give hundreds of millions in debt write downs to one businessman. They, the government, pay themselves huge salaries, more in unvouched expenses for TD’s that amount to more than a nurse earns in a year. IW cost billions to set up, for what benefit? The list is endless. Yet when it comes to paying for the public services that people depend on, there’s never any money. Why?

@Miller: but an extra €1 billion for corrupt officials, builders and an overpriced hospital is OK?!

@Joe Bloggs: that’s normally what happens .. buy the rest of the PS will see their opportunity.. that’s normally what happens too… same old merrygoround different day …

@Dave Doyle: it does owe the dept unfortunately.. the government in power at the time guaranteed the debt on our behalf .. sorry

@Dave Doyle: and where did he say he was happy the Irish Government bailed the bankers out, set up Irish water, handsomely pay themselves, etc etc on the never ending list goes.

What he is trying to point out is that the taxpayer is constantly being asked to contribute to the Government woes.

@Mushy Peas: and sorry, to address your main point about this is a service that people depend on:

Due to all the calamities the Heath Services in this country have been involved in, I believe we need to reassess what we expect from these services in terms of minimum provision.

@Dave Doyle: Most of the debt is from borrowing money to keep the lights on, dole, social welfare, so to say its not our debt is frankly nonsense.
The rest of your post is typical left wing uneducated claptrap, banks dont pay tax on profits because they suffered huge losses, and under global GAAP they can write those loses off against profits, every business can do this.
Venture Capitalists while unwelcome are taken bad loans off balance sheets, this increases the capital ratios of our banks and hopefully preventing another crash.
You see the actual facts fly directly into your narrative, you lie constantly and this is the modus operandi of the left champagne socialists. Rhetoric is of little value.

@paul dunne: a simple spelling mistake can alter the meaning of every message or that of every word that you wanted to convey, hence correct spelling is a MUST really

@Miller: I think less than 6k of the nurses have degree allowances. Only came in in 2002 or 04…

@John Kelly: FG pledged to get debt deal and not pay bondholders before 2011 General Election but reneaged on their pledges!
“Irish Government blew opportunity to get debt deal” – former IMF chief Mody” Indo 16/12/15

@Paul O Mahoney: Why did “the lights” have to be “kept on”?!
Banks were bailed out & shouldn’t be allowed 21yrs exemption re taxes!

@Paul O Mahoney: The gap in our public finances during the crash is constantly conflated with bailing out of the banks. What the government of the time could have/should have done was closed the gap overnight with massive cuts to expenditure, social welfare, PS wages etc and let the banks go to the wall and be done with it along with everyone’s savings. Of course they would have been booted out of the EU and the Euro as well. It would be interesting to see if this particular patch of grass would have been greener….

@Miller: Go and look at a nursing curriculum and then tell me nursing shouldn’t be a degree programme. You obviously don’t understand the skills, knowledge and competence that goes into being a fully trained nurse.

@Miller: and nurses are clinically trained staff who carry out various assessments on each patient they get so they can recommend further treatment for them. Educate yourself before making ridiculous assumptions.

@Paul O Mahoney: Another false name no profile shill banging FG’s drum.
Ireland never owed 42% of Europe’s banker debts, but were forced to pay it. Who caused the banks loses? The banks did. Who pays for those loses? Not the bankers.
Vulture funds, brought in by Noonan to sustain a rotten and corrupt banking system.

@Nuala Mc Namara: I was referring to paying wages of the PS , dole, social welfare. Again its simply running down loses, you are getting 21 years from Sinn Fein, depending on the losses and future profits, there is no definite timeline.

@Paul O Mahoney: What a load of brainwashed s h 1 t !!

@Joe Bloggs: what about the Health care assistants, they always seem to be over looked. They work equally as hard.

@rendams: fully agree but unfortunately my fat finger has a mind.
Of its own

@Miller: I beg to differ. All nurses graduating since 2006 have a degree, plus most senior staff nurses/CNMs/Nurse Practitioners have a Masters. I’m a Nurse Manager & I have a certificate, a degree & a Masters. Further education is necessary if you want to progress or specialise. Please get your facts straight.

@Shayne O’Donoghue: nursing degrees were in in mid 90s Shayne

@Dave Doyle: Thats my name, and aint a shill for anyone. The bailout of the banks was 64bn, initially final figures are difficult to find but its generally agreed that 42bn was the full cost.
Ireland didn’t pay 42% of anything we barely meet our own debt, so, thats bs.
Venture Capitalists have been operating here in Ireland since the 1980s, most international ones have offices here since the IFSC opened in the mid 90s.
You appear to be lacking fact, and appear angry when people call out your b/s.
No matter you’ll live in your fantasies and blame people for your failures or make up lies about them as you did to me.
Anger is a very destructive emotion and it is usually a trait that the less informed of society carry around.

@John Kelly: Guaranteeing the debt and actually owing it are two vastly different things.

@Paddy J: Paddy that would have decimated us, no economy would survive without a banking system , no matter how broken ours was.
If we were out of the Euro, wed catapult back to the 1950s, FDI would pull out and unemployment would be 800k.
It was a tough medicine to take, hopefully it wont repeat, I have my doubts though.

@GorillaGrower: Would like to counter, or just throw infantile remarks. I appreciate that countering with facts might be a particular challenge for you, but you never know.

@Ann-Marie Cronin: and you also get paid more thsn the rates for staff nurses that are constantly being quoted

@Miller: Have you checked the P60s of 10 random nurses?

@Paul O Mahoney: Could you post a more coherent reply instead of SF references!I!

@Paul O Mahoney: Paul, totally in agreement with you, it was the correct and only decision that could have been made. Even the hard left Syriza were in agreement this was the way forward. No Irish political party would have made different choices despite the bull$h!t they peddle. Our pseudo left parties woukd have ran away screaming long before Syriza did.

@Dave Doyle: not to mention they can magically pull out an extra 3.9 million for overrun on the new hospital……if they don’t sort this issue out, there will be nobody to staff said hospital and it will be another financial disaster to add to the many existing ones.

@Toon Army: What is your answer to collective bargaining Toon?

@John McG: your some clown

@John McG: they are not looking for a ride, they want restoration. Big difference. And it helps by keeping newly qualified nurses inItelsnd instead of them leaving to work on countries where they will have far better pay and working conditions. It is a legal requirement to have a safe workplace. Stop blaming the nurses and put the blame where it belongs…. With the greedy incompetent shower that are supposed to be managing the health service. The only thing they are capable of managing is lining their own pockets.

@Mushy Peas: up arrow if you want people to stop requesting up arrows

@Gareth Keenan: my phone shows a thumb. Do I just mash the up arrow on my pc keyboard??

@Mark: The fingers you have used to dial are too fat. To obtain a special dialing wand please mash the keypad with your palm now.

@Mushy Peas: The privatisation of the Public Health Service is one of FG’s main goals. A Health Service that the public have paid for since the inception of the state. And you think it should be handed over to the likes of O’Brien, or some American Corporation so they can profit from it at the expense of people’s health?

@Dave Doyle: great counterpoint.

No, I would not want the health infrastructure that the Irish people have contributed to for decades to be sold off without proper repayment.

First way to address this, would be to ensure a fair prices is received for all tenders and the bidding process should not be compromised and should be held in public, similar to the Citizens Assembly for the 8th. TDs can question bidders and plans are released in official documents.

The money received from these companies, and the savings made by not having a healthcare budget, will be transferred over to the new health insurance scheme whereby all citizens will be guaranteed free healthcare at point of delivery, and depending on age, other healthcare expenses are covered by the government until a future date.

@Nuala Mc Namara: 1.)This is falsely identifying nurses among the entire 150,000 HSE staff and saying they alone had staff reductions in the past 10 years and will have substiantial numbers due for retirement.
In recent years the entire HSE has seen substiantial numbers of staff retired, this was mandated by government policy. Many grades will see large numbers of staff retire over the coming years, it’s not unique to nursing and many areas have a recruitment and retention crisis, again not unique to nursing.

2.)Linking the well known overcrowding crisis to nurses pay is disingenuous, the two are completely unrelated issues. Increases nurses pay will not effect this in any beneficial way whatsoever.

3.) Yes rents are high in Dublin, even higher now than at the peak of the boom years – however everyone is effected by this, not nurses alone.

4.) The OECD itself has already indicated that it’s reports on nursing cannot be relied upon. Frankly, we already know our Health Service is in a shambles, for one grade of staff to acknowledge this and say that, never the less, they still want a substantial pay raise makes no sense. It’s equally bizare to presume this will somehow fix the situation, it won’t.

@Arch Angel: NEWSFLASH!: article about nurses &nurses strike!
1) Article about nurse& nurses strike!There were 110,795 HSE staff in 2017& over 30% were nurses.
With a shortfall of frontline nurses of 2229 since 2007 leading to understaffing in hospitals with a retention and recruitment crisis plus 9000 nurses due to retire in 8years these are completely relevant points when discussing unsafe understaffing conditions in hospitals affecting both patients and staff!
2)I didn’t link hospital overcrowding to nurses pay!
There is a recruitment and retention crisis as noted in (1) because of unsafe understaffing in hospitals and inadequate pay for highly educated highly skilled nursing staff.Nurse to patient ratios average at 1nurse to 8patients-1nurse to 11patients well above safety levels (&much worse ratios in specific cases)When there’s significant unsafe overcrowding with understaffing it’s dangerous for patients plus are stressful working conditions for nurses which they constantly highlighted!Nurses in Ireland work longer hours than UK,US,Canada& Australia too.
It is logical reasoning that if recruitment and retention crisis tackled by providing adequate pay for nurses&action pledges re their working conditions,more nurses would be encouraged to stay& that in turn would ensure safer nurse/patient ratios!
3) Article is about nurses!
4)30%+ of HSE staff are nursing staff
19% of HSE staff are Patient&Client Care
16% of HSE staff are Management/Administration
14% of HSE staff are Health& Social Care
9% of HSE staff are Medical/Dental
9% of HSE staff are General Support Staff
As FRONTLINE staff ,nurses who are over 30% of HSE staff concerns for their patients care re understaffing and overcrowding unsafe dangerous conditions have not been heeded year after year & are ongoing stressful working conditions for nurses.
They work longer hours also in these unsafe working conditions.This can’t continue & it’s affecting recruitment and retention of nurses as well as pay concerns.There is flexibility in the PSSA to address this,if the will was there to on Government’s side.

@Nuala Mc Namara: Nuala you keep just copying and pasting the same comments but fail to answer any questions to you. Here’s a few for starters..
1 will giving nurses a 19% pay increase get people off trollies? If so, how?
2 do you think such an increase will spark a demand across the PS and how would we pay for this?
3 should the matter of the average nurse taking 10-12 paid sick days per year be addressed as it would put the equivalent of another 300,000 days per year back into the service?
4 How much is the average nurse paid in gross pay (not basic) per year?
5 Reports have stated that we do have enough nurses but too many of them are in admin and paper pushing instead of being on the front line. Do you agree?

Most people entering the work place these days have degrees, same as nurses

@Nuala Mc Namara: 1.) NEWSFLASH This isn’t just about nurses but also effects everyone. The health service is the largest employer in the state with over 128,000 personnel (including home helps).

https://www.hse.ie/eng/staff/resources/our-workforce/public-health-service-workforce-profile-at-december-2016.pdf

It’s also worth bearing in mind that, despite claims to the contrary, there has already been over 10,000 nurses from abroad hired by the HSE. These are the INMO’s figures and, again almost every Public Service department has the same issues with staff shortages and imminent retirements, not just nurses.

2.) You may not have linked the pay claim to such things as overcrowding however others have. You’re assuming that the only reason there’s difficulty retaining and employing nurses is down to pay when, in the past, nurses themselves have identified other reasons such as conditions. I have also pointed out that these various difficulties are also experienced by most departments within the Public Service, the gardaí for example.

3.) Are you seriously saying you won’t allow any reference to any other grade on a nursing topic, that’s childish.

4.) This also means that 30% of the overall wage bill must also be spent on nurses, currently about €2.5 billion annually. The demand is to increase this by almost €half a billion on nurses alone.
Are you seriously claiming that nurses are the only ones in the HSE working in unsafe conditions, stressed, with insufficient staffing levels, and the solution is to substantially increase their pay? And you can’t see how this may possibly have a knock-on effect to other staff within the HSE and other Public Servants, some who may even be more warranted? This is simply a case of nurses being the first ones in a money grab.

@John Kelly: huh???

@Nuala Mc Namara: The most sensible comment I’ve read here. Thank you. Also can I ask readers to see this audit data showing how crazy our ICU’s are – https://twitter.com/theseant/status/1093078777414983680?s=19
Our grumblings and complaints at work are now backed with solid data. Working in these conditions & constantly apologising to families for 3am inappropriate discharges has quite frankly left me burnt out.

@Joanna Hickey: and a 19% pay rise will help this how? The INMO tell us that “increases across the board” will solve these problems. I hear overcrowding I hear pay. I hear people on trollies I hear pay. I hear stress I hear pay. Sorry but this is just about money. The INMO have not put forward any solutions other than pay from what I can see.

@John Kelly: Perhaps it will make it attractive for nurses to return ?

@GrumpyAulFella: I have answered all questions however not my fault if you can’t understand common sense!
1)&4): INMO “Salary information: Nursing/Midwifery Salary Scales as at 2019″&RTE:”How much do nurses earn?” 9/2/19
Nurses also work longer than nurses in UK,US,Canada& Australia.
There a retention and recruitment crisis,reasons include unsafe overcrowding conditions & inadequate pay for highly educated highly skilled nurses.
According to INMO:”"reduced durations of stay for patients associated with safer staffing levels”
2)There’s a special Clause 3 in PSSA that relates to retention and recruitment re nurses.
3)ESRI and Health and Safety Authority Research state Ireland’s health workers take the most sick days due to their work(Journal.ie reported on 19/4/18)
Nurses are working in unsafe,understaffing, stressful,dangerous working conditions every day!
Also RTE reported on 15/12/18 that HSE figures figures show nurses are victims of most hospital assaults eg 61% last year!
5)OECD Report stated Ireland has the 5th highest number of nurses BUT when HOSPITAL nurses ONLY are considered, Ireland RANKS NEAR THE BOTTOM for those countries where data is recorded.
OECD stated :” Nurses are defined as all the “practising” nurses providing direct health services.HOWEVER for some countries (including Ireland)due to lack of comparable data,the figures correspond to “professionally active” nurses including nurses working in the health sector as managers,educators,researchers,etc”That’s their specialities and are needed in those areas.

@Arch Angel:
1)This is about nurses& flexibility in PSSA Clause 3 re recruitment and retention.
2)INMO noted “reduced durations of stay for patients associated with safer staffing levels”If retention and recruitment crisis tackled including re pay then there will be safer staffing levels!
3)That’s my opinion!
4)INMO website “We have identified excessive costs and wastage in the HSE which could be used to address the pay issues at the heart of the recruitment and retention crisis…..
Costs identified which would be cut if more nurses and midwives could be attracted to the public health service include:
:over €100m spent in 2018 on Agency nurses,used to fill gaps left by vacant posts
:€10,000-€20,000 spent per nurse or midwife recruited by overseas agencies
:reduced durations of stay for patients associated with safer staffing levels.

@Nuala Mc Namara: now perhaps you can answer my questions which IMO go to the heart of the matter.

@Nuala Mc Namara: I have the Public Service Stability Agreement 2018 – 2020 open in front of me and nowhere does it refer to nurses in this clause or the entire agreement. It refers to the Public Service in general.
It’s somewhat ridiculous in a dispute to quote your own sides assessment of the situation. If they’re that concerned about staffing levels then put aside the pay claim and allow the additional money be used for hiring more nurses?
As I said before many of those Agency nurses who were paid that €100 million were HSE nurses making considerable additional money. I don’t have a problem with this, they earned it, however I’d prefer if there was a little more transparency in this regard. Can you cite your source for the figure of €10,000-€20,000 spent per nurse or midwife recruited abroad and we’ll start there?

@Arch Angel: 1)Clause 3 Recruitment and retention :3.1.1 Reference to Public Service Pay Commission Report re P 6.3 deals with nurses and midwives.
The PSP Commission stated:
“The recruitment and retention of key staff is a central function of management in every organisation.In the public health service it is a dominant imperative”
“In the Commission’s view there is a case for providing additional incentives for qualified nursing and midwifery staff to remain in the public service”
Commission was excluded within its Terms of Reference from undertaking a general pay review for any group”The Commission was left in no doubt that nurses and midwives are seriously aggrieved at what they regard as anomalies in the current pay structures relative to other professions working in the public health service.”
“The Commission recognises that there is no mechanism currently that could allow for these issues to be addressed or dealt with in isolation.
The Comission nevertheless believes that thought has to be given by the parties to the PSSA to consider putting arrangements in place,at an appropriate time,& without compromising the stability of the public service bill,to allow for the ADEQUACY of current pay arrangements more generally to be fully examined”
2)By the way,I’m not a “side”, just an ordinary citizen!
3)Renumeration is one of the issues affecting retention and recruitment of nurses.
4)HSE expendture on Agency nurses and midwives has increased by 85% since 2007.
HSE expendture on health care assistants increased by 130% since 2007.
INMO website had that €10,000-€20,000 figures.
5)I’m done explaining now!I’ve included facts &figures,common sense and logic & if you still don’t understand,that’s your problem!

@Dave Doyle: nope I exist … not banging any drum just asking a reasonable question and you have a silly answer

@Arch Angel: By the way according to HSE last year HSE had 110,795 staff in 2017.

@Paul O Mahoney: ok. The politicians salary is 95k. Their yearly expenses appear on the papers, they generally range from 100k to 300k. They get extra for appearing on various committees (15k). Couple thousand more when they become whips, lots of whips per party. The independents get a 40k yearly allowance. Then there are the party designated funds. Then the “special bonus expense allowance”. Whats that for? Theres the pensions. (Leo has a pension valued at 1.5 million after only 11 years in politics, thats insane, unjustifiable). And you cannot justify giving the politicians more money just because it amounts to 500k compared to 300 mil for the nurses.

@Paul O Mahoney: they give themselves almost 1/2 a nurses salary (15k) extra for appearing on committees and what does the taxpayer get in return for it, the childrens hospital costs disaster!

@Adrian: I need a link Adrian, you are claiming that some politicians are getting upto 300k on top of salary. You are the one who needs to verify this. I dont for one second believe that’s the truth.

@Adrian: I found one reference that the maximum allowance is approximately 89k and one needs to be in the sticks for that. Total expenses for 2015 was €1.7m or avg 11k per TD
Each party has one whip, and an assistant whip, 6k and 4.5k respectively.
Cant find anything on committee payments so even based on these figures your 100k to 300k seem fanciful, but I will stand corrected if you show the figures and link.
My figures come from Irish Times and this website.

@Paul O Mahoney: i had a look. Problem is political expenses are hard to calculate, its not one item, its many, and it depends whats included. Looked at gov website, a lot of the tds had vouched expenses of 1,333 for last dec (same for tds all over the country). Its like what they decided to put down for the official records, as opposed to what their actual expenses were. What were their unvouched expenses??? I’ve seen articles in papers a year or 2 ago, they probably include everything thats not a salary or pension, probably included stuff like office rent and office employees, adding to couple 100k. Then you hear the story of the 2 lads on the recent junket to switzerland and they maxed out their “special bonus expense allowance” of 1k on meals”.

@Gus Sheridan: And that’s FFG’s plan. Dobbie is rubbing his hands.

@Arch Angel: don’t forget any pay increase is also given to all the retired nurses as their pension is linked to the current salary.

@Dave Doyle: yes they will try to privitize theHSE. But they would have that goal in mind, nurses dispute.or not.

@GrumpyAulFella: Well that certainly applied to the private banks and the private developers over the last 10 years, get tax payers foot the bill.

I think for the work they are doing and I don’t mean tea and take a blood pressure reading but the administering IV’s and drugs that could be fatal, where ever incident that goes wrong is a headline. That need pay.
Its a shift work job and I think the need segregate that frontline essential service to silky suits managerial type civil servants that created the NCH fiasco. The easiest way is to address wages is to apply shift same as manufacture industry 25% of salary for 24/7- 15% for partial and 7% for weekends.
It detaches it from all civil servants then Mon-Fri 9-5 and most others. The problem is the HSE have stocked the rafters with admins and not the same with white overcoats. Some admin is need but not 10:1 alot of money is wasted on that.

@Albert Brennerman: and most of the admin staff are…….nurses!!

@Arch Angel: where did you get 50000 nurses at an average of €50000 salary. Straight away you have twisted the figures to suit your own agenda. Nowhere have nurses said that they want 12% much less 19% but sure throw that in too. You are conveniently leaving out the facts that they are striking over staffing levels and conditions too but sure that mightn’t suit your well made arguments

@Eamonn O Connell: he didn’t say salary he said earnings. Various reports such as below suggest that on average 82% of nurses are on a basic of €40,000 plus another 20% in premia payments. Presumably overtime can be added on top of this so perhaps €50K plus in gross pay. Are these figures not accurate? Not bad with 10 sick paid days a year plus a fantastic pension scheme if these figures are accurate.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/review-states-no-exodus-of-nurses-while-pay-competitive-1.3570521?mode=amp

@Arch Angel: rather the nurses emptied the pot than a useless hospital, jobpath, government wages, poor government decisions etc

@Patricia Mcnamara: I appreciate that, as an ex-nurse, your view may be somewhat biased, however if one grade of staff is given all the money in the pot this isn’t the way to go. It loses sight of the goals everyone claims to have to improve the Health Service and reduces it to nothing more than a money grab masquerading as something it isn’t. Other grades will, naturally, want a commensurate pay increase, nurses won’t support them. Other Public Servants have already expressed their disquiet and, if nurses are successful, will want a similar slice of the pie, nurses won’t support them either.
It makes no sense whatsoever to identify the various issues and faults within the Health Service and conclude the best way to fix them is to give the nurses a substantial pay increase. Even if successful, this will not have any beneficial effect on nursing retention numbers, it won’t have any corresponding effect on patient safety, nor will nurses be any less tired at the end of their shift. To make any of these claims, which have been made, is an outright lie.

@Arch Angel: what do you mean, nurses wouldn’t support others looking for a JUST wage??????of course they would
Yes I was a nurse in a time when we were brainwashed into.believing that nursing was a vocation
Vocation my.aunt assy. It is hard work.

@Patricia Mcnamara: By that I mean that if Fire Fighters, the Gardaí (yes, I know), Prison Officers or the military etc. wish to bring a pay dispute I don’t believe nurses will offer anything more than token support. I’m sure their union will support them, they’ll voice it, they may even ask members to go on the odd march. Maybe. But it wouldn’t extend beyond that.
There are only so many slices of the pie to go around, and if the nurses are successful in their pay claim they’ll have succeed in grabbing the entire pie.
I’m well aware that nursing isn’t a vocation, bills have to be paid and people have to earn a living. This may seem somewhat strange however I’m married to a nurse. What has always been sacrosanct though is that the patients always come first, this seems to have been lost in the lies and grab for money.

@paul kelly: now Im confused.