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THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE of Ireland’s Restaurants Association has said that Minister Joan Burton does not recognise the pressure the catering industry is under to keep its head above water.
Bruton, Minister for Social Protection, has suggested that the system of premium payments for Sunday work in sectors like restaurants and retail should not be abolished as that would target many low-income earners. She told RTE’s Morning Ireland that the Department of Social Protection is looking at what the Government’s Jobs Initiative – which suggests that the Sunday premium payments and overtime should go in these sectors – would mean for workers.
However, Adrian Cummins, CEO of the Restaurants Association of Ireland said that these premium payments are having the effect of restaurateurs having to cut down on the number of staff members they employ. He told TheJournal.ie today:
One thing we need is to get these Joint Labour Committees abolished. I don’t think Joan Burton realises the pressure the industry is under. Why, for example, should a restaurant have to pay an 8 per cent premium to a student who comes in for work and has no experience when such a premium would not be paid to a student in any other job?Forcing the industry to keep paying this premium is a ridiculous piece of 1940s legislation that needs to be gotten rid of.
The 13 Joint Labour Committees are statutory bodies set up by the Labour Relations Court to set minimum rates of pay in certain sectors of employment.
A new proposal recommended as part of the new Jobs Initiative, announced by Minister for Enterprise and Jobs Richard Bruton, is that the controversial Sunday premium would no longer be a legally binding condition for those working in the hairdressing, retail, grocery, catering and security sectors. That constitutes around 200,000 people.
While the union Mandate stated on the same Morning Ireland programme that it was against the cut of the premium rate, employers’ confederation IBEC echoed the Irish Restaurants Association’s views that it should go.
Adrian Cummins said:
Richard Bruton sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Paying this premium means restaurateurs are having to instead cut the number of people they employ. That’s bad for workers and it’s bad for any restaurant to be getting by with less staff than it needs to be efficient.
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Setting up a transformation office? How many gardai have been allocated to this? Setting up a fancy shmancy office isn’t going to make a difference to the ordinary copper out there, who works 6 ten hour shifts back to back, who have no funding, have shoddy equipment, who deal with signing a hundred passport forms a day, telling someone their relative has just died, dealing with members of the public who all think the function of the gardai is to wave a magic wand and everything will be grand, confronting violent and sometimes armed individuals who have no regard for person or property and wouldn’t hesitate in killing a garda.. The list goes on. What’s needed is about 5,000 more gardai to deal with just the everyday things. Taking calls, responding to said calls, not to be telling the public “we’ve no car today because they’re in court, so we’ll get to your burgled house in about 5 hours “, proper allocation of time to investigate crimes. Oh and they also need a management that give a sh*t about them.
Amen to that MrsWoman.
Not the job it used to be, low pay = low interest in the job, no matter what industry.
Transformation office? When I read that I thought Kathryn Thomas was going to be weighing some fat coppers once a week while Karl Henry tried his best to give out to them.
Combatting the scourge of the breakfast roll.
A transformation office? Now that’s the best one I’ve heard yet
Hhmm . We will see about this ” reform” ? No confidence in the Governments ” security guards”.
Total waffle. G in Garda now stands for girlie.
Hillarious. Did you come up with that all by yourself?
Wonder will it make any difference to a force that has the tradition of what we have seen over the years? Not very hopeful
What tradition is that?….
And P in Peter now stands for Tool
Reserves badly managed, very unfair on all involved. Should be an asset but set up so badly it will not work, a pity many with good intentions but no guidance.
I wonder did they call it Operation Transformation
The transformation office is charged with……
Blocking reform, maintaining illegal gardai perks and practises, insuring that all investigations of garda wrong doing is suppressed. Naturally a lot of middle ranking gardai will be of the streets to staff the office. Ahhhh the smell of quango and corruption permeates the FG/LAB junta.
Is Mik The Pink now directing which way the Garda Siochana should be run
Thats soooo soooo reassuring.
A “transformation office” are we guna hav pre-op & post-op shicaloni now?
Mrswoman, could the 5,000 extra gardai needed be filled with garda reservists? Could they help out walk the beat, sign passports etc etc? Free up time
@Shelly. Are there even 5000 reserves? They don’t have full powers. They don’t work (as reserves) everyday… They don’t get paid. Not worth a damn.
Another sign of the Gardai being run by bean counters and desk jockeys of many varieties. Policing is not a business, you can’t run it like a business. Jobs for the boys in nice safe offices, people with useless management degrees telling actual police officers what to do. No regard for what is actually needed – more actual Gardai – not reserves – and not politically correct yes men & women. More shite “reform” from the “New” Commissioner – sure she’s a new broom blah blah blah
fas is now solas, what a difference.
I just think they (reservists) should be allowed to do the more mundane jobs and your time could be freed up to do proper policing. They could be rostered to get more involved on the days they work. That’s all
@Shelly, as far as I know the reserves accompany gardai to calls, help out in the station etc. But you might see a reserve once every three or four weeks…. They should concentrate on getting more Gardai out there, the force is crying out for not hundreds, but thousands.
Transformation me Asre!!! Are we really gonna see a transformation in gardai cancelling penalty points for themselves? their buddies and judges. Are we really gonna see a stop to murdering the spirits of well meaning and honourable whistleblowers? are we really gonna see a transformation in gardai being the private security thugs for government and Irish Water and Shell? Are we really gonna see a transformation in gardai fabricating evidence in pursuit of innocent or guilty parties? Are we really gonna see a transformation of their current ‘inability’ to pursue corrupt politicians, clergy, bankers and elite generally? Are we gonna see a transformation of the majority of PC plodders being silent about the behaviour of the minority of gardai? Not bloody likely….
fantastic by the government yet again. i can’t wait for FGs second term :)
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