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THE STANDARDS in Public Office Commission (SIPO) is to be asked to investigate the actions of Tipperary North TD Michael Lowry, following his failure to include his interests in certain lands in the UK in recent Dáil registers of members’ interests.
SIPO will be asked to investigate Lowry’s actions, and whether he has breached his obligations of the Ethics in Public Office Acts 1995 and 2001, by the Dáil’s committee on members’ interests, which met this morning.
That committee said it had received 380 complaints from the public about Lowry’s failure to declare his half-share in about 20 acres of land in Wigan.
Lowry claimed he had omitted the land from his recent declarations of members’ interests because it was “worthless”, but an investigation by the Irish Examiner led to its investigative correspondent Conor Ryan being told that an offer of €6.7 million for the site “would be cheap”.
The Ethics in Public Office Act 1995 requires Oireachtas members to disclose their land interests in the annual Register of Members’ Interests, and says any land worth over €13,000 (previously IR£10,000) must be included.
Lowry has since sought to amend his declarations so that the Wigan land, originally bought by Vineacre (a British-based company owned by Lowry and Thurles developer Liam Carroll) and Carroll individually in 2001. Lowry’s name replaced that of Vineacre in 2003.
Lowry told Tipp FM last month that the land was “worthless” and had not provided him with any rental income since its purchase, and it was unlikely to unless it was rezoned. He said the land has become overgrown and has not been tended to.
The chairman of the Dáil committee on members’ interests, independent TD Thomas Pringle, this afternoon said his committee believed SIPO was “better placed to conduct an investigation into these allegations”.
This was because the Ethics in Public Office legislation “provides for an Inquiry Officer to assist the Commission in its work” – with no such function or support available to the Dáil committee itself.
SIPO’s investigation into the matter, when finished, will be sent back to the Dáil committee for its final ruling, as the legislation allows only that committee to issue any punishment or sanction over breaches of the ethics laws.
The committee has the power to suspend members from the Dáil for up to 30 sitting days.
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I can only talk for the health sector but, certainly in respect of the hospitals, we’re in the worst period of crisis we’ve ever been. Last week we simply ran out of places to put people on a couple of days. We’re so short of staff there’s no spare staff to open extra beds and we’re running a couple of nurses short on every shift. Last year we advertised nursing jobs at 80% of current salaries and less than one in five of the posts we’re filled. In an international market, with the high tax rates we have and competition from the private sector we’ve probably bottomed out in terms of nurses pay from the ‘open market’ point of view but Croke Park 2 tried to drop it by 7 -10%.
Consultant are ‘overpaid’ but last year 21 posts went unfilled through lack or withdrawl of applicants and many more just weren’t advertised as soundings made of suitable applicants abroad said they wouldn’t return for what is being offered in terms of conditions, tax and pay. We have about half the junior doctors we need to run the emergency departments for July and a flu outbreak beginning to rumble in China.
So yeah, cut their pay…… But don’t whine next winter when you see the final collapse of the hospital system. At the moment it wouldn’t take a strike, a work to rule would close most city hospitals to admissions.
Great comment Joe. The health service is where from the outside things seem to be at their worst. Front line services are critically understaffed, work practices have become inefficient and there are layers and layers of admin. Nurses deserve to be paid well and if we want good doctors we have to party them to.
Yes very good point that is often overlooked.
In the same fashion I do not know why anybody with a math degree would choose a teaching career…
Joe, how are the accounts and management staff holding up though? Well staffed and comfortable?
Joe, would the ability to roster staff in line with department needs, rather than their own have helped? How many were out sick? Is everyone working at the same pace? Are there others standing around on wards with idle time?
We are all aware of how many extremely hard working people there are in the HSE.
But we’ll never understand why they keep covering and making excuses for the deadweight in the HSE.
Rostering not really an issue at the moment. Every shift has been cut and hospitals often struggle to fill the 9 to 5. Absenteeism is lowest in the clinical areas and in many cases justified. If your local hospital gets a flu or winter vomiting outbreak, the nursing and medical staff frequently are as affected as the patients. We also can’t afford clinical staff ‘battling through’ a heavy cold for example because if they give it to a vulnerable patient or pass it around the other staff results will be far worse than one staff member off work for a day or two. You close wards to save money but 100%+ bed occupancy means ward specialization breaks down. You just have to clear the Emergency Department. Chest patients end up on Gastro wards, medical patients fill surgical beds. So operations are cancelled, outcomes suffer and lengths of stay rise, worsening the overall situation. What’s more, consultant surgeons have to admit patients when they can, maybe a couple of days before they can operate, but if the wait until the day of operation then they won’t have a bed, so even length of stay for elective surgery increases.
When I read a lot of posts I think of HL Mencken’s quote. ‘For every complex problem there is a solution. Clear, simple and wrong’
Reading articles like this really makes me shake my head, those who despise the Public Service would often jump at the chance of joining it right now. But where were they 10 or 15 years ago when they could have, back then they’d have turned their noses up at the suggestion?
Aaron suggests that nurses and gardai who work shifts and unsociable hours rejected the Corke Park 2 deal because it favours their 9 to 5 counterparts, I don’t think so. Those I’ve spoken to rejected it because their salaries have already been cut by at least 20%, they’re fed up with governments coming back to them every time with cuts to wages, levies, deals and broken promises. They’ve had enough. Another cut would push most of them over the edge, many are bringing home the only income and feel they are being unfairly punished, they feel the Banks have walked away scott free and continue to call the shots. Several mentioned media reports that wages in the Private Sector are rising and showing promise.
Aaron used the analogy of a passenger liner, but just as there are the crew a passenger sees on a liner and crew they don’t a hospital is the same. The frontline staff in an A&E Department cannot exist without their support staff, from porters and cleaners to lab staff, office staff and maintenance. The various disciplines are already paid different levels, quite a lot less than most realise, to suggest that those individual disciplines should be paid differently depending on where they work would be unworkable. Who decides what areas get paid more? Who decides what areas are busiest, based on what criteria, against what? Because right now all departments are working beyond their maximum levels, as Joe Harbison said it will only take a tiny push to bring our entire country to its knees.
Almost every hospital in the country is reporting that it can’t cope, they’re all overstretched, understaffed, underfunded. This is not opinion, this is fact. We know that this July we will have another crisis with dozens of junior doctor posts unfilled in every hospital. Sooner or later we WILL have a flu outbreak, birdflu, swineflu, something of that nature. When it happens, and it will, our Health system will totally collapse. Its on the edge every day right now so it won’t take much to tip it over. We need the well qualified staff and the infrastructure just to cope with the day to day increases and be prepared for the bad stuff, we’re failing badly in both.
” those who despise the Public Service would often jump at the chance of joining it right now”
Wow, defensive much? I think many of those who you claim “despise the Public Service” are simply people who look at the numbers and weep. This is a national crisis.
As for your other statement, do you really think people are clamoring to join the PS? Give me a break. It’s quite evident from the outside that your employer is probably the worst one around. Not to mention the deluded colleagues you’d have to put up with.
Your whole comment just iliustrates the depth of the problem. You think people are just out to get you, nothing could be further from the truth. Take a look at the increase in e.g. health spending during the “boom”. By now we should have a world class health service, but we don’t. It’s not just about the money.
Here here! Let them strike.
Hear Hear.
And yes. Let them.
I third that sentiment. Their own greed will be their undoing.
Break the unions, save the country!
Yes let them strike. Then I will be one of the so called scabs and cross the lines and work( which is something I have been unable to find for three years). And I will do it for a fair wage. There are 400,000 of us on the dole willing to take up the slack.
Labour will have to walk away from a government that attempts to break the unions. They have already undone all the progress made in the last few years. Working class voters turning to Sinn Fein in droves. Unbridled capitalism (financism) where profits are private and losses are picked up by the taxpayer must be challenged.
Those working for multinationals are aiding in money laundering. The Irish state gains no benefit bar employment.
We need to increase our tax return (not rate) close to 12% and if google/intel leave, we should have the people and skills to set up in competition.
Many private companies have done nothing for workers pensions. Rather than criticise PS pensions, maybe the problem is with the hugely profitable companies that don’t pay pensions?
Qualified doctor are we Damo?
You what?
Damn those nurses for wrecking the economy! Damn them! Looks like the cowboy sector wants a scapegoat for their mess again lads. Don’t worry captains of industry – the public sector will clean up after you.
No I am not a qualified doctor. If you read the article it’s the frontline staff who should be protected. Having worked for a semi-state in the past and being a union member at the time( which I now regret), I saw the waste and poor management that was there. The unions will protect their staff at any cost. An instance of this lead directly to one company I worked for just shut the facility and move it up north while the jobs in the headquarters( where the union big-wigs were employed) were saved. So feck the unions.
Excellent article. There are fantastic hard working people in the public services who deserve everything they get and more. The problem is with the systems and the protection of the systems which is allowed to continue.
We need and can afford more front line staff such as nurses and gardai, but also in social welfare and other public facing sections.
Hiw can we pay for this? Efficiency – The numbers of ‘ administrators’ must be significantly reduced. IT has brought enormous efficiencies in the private sector but there is little evidence of this efficiency in the public sector. (some of you may remember the equipment purchased by gardai which I think was for processing fingerprints which the unions prevented being used because it wasn’t part of their work practices)
In my work we have significantly reduced wage costs and increased productivity. Our head count in admin is down by 60%, our head count in front line is down by 12%. We are doing more work with less through efficiency.
Good comment.
In addition, very high level Civil Servants need their wages brought down, AND it should be made easier to sack a Civil Servant – by that I mean for inefficiency, same as you can in the Private Sector. I know directly of two CC who do what they like, when they like and the management can do nothing. The sense of entitlement to a job for life really brings out the worst in some.
I agree 100 per cent.
@michael Byrne, what are you on about fingerprint systems not being used by the Gardai? The system is and always was being used by the Gardai since it was obtained. Civilian staff were refusing to fingerprint applicants as the had no lawful authority at the time, not the Gardai.
I heard a great story from a supplier, a printing company in Rathcoole that sums up the civil service. They went for a print tender with citizens information board, quoted about €90k on the job, a design company won the tender at about €145k. The job involved a small portion of design but the CIB went with the designer because they wanted a Rolls Royce to get from a to b when a Ford Mondeo would have done the same job.
They want the best of everything for themselves and are using our money to do it.
The funny part about the story is that CIB. run MABS who are charged with telling the people of Ireland how to save money in difficult financial times.
This is typical of civil servants mentality to spending our money, they have not got a clue and don’t give a sh1te!
@Paul, maybe your printer friend wasn’t up to scratch or able to fill the order in the time or to the requirements needed. He is hardly going to tell you his short comings or that of his business. It’s a bit of a he said, she said story. Saying that I have witnessed first hand the absolute crazy amounts if money the state pays for things. A lot if it is down to the contractor who ’round up’ (to put it mildly) their quotes and costs and the rest is down to apathy on behalf of those signing the cheques. It has changed somewhat though.
ieonu, he told me loads of other stories that had been related to him by other companies that had me in shock.
A job lost to Italy or France (not sure which) where the civil servants went to see the job being printed, the cost of sending them there was not included in the original tender. The Irish company was only a few hundred out on original quote, if cost of sending two people to see job being printed was included in price he would have got the job. A reporter should gather all these stories and publish them, might make somebody sit up and pay attention.
Ieoinu, just called printer in question to ask him something about this article, the awarding committee involved in the tender know nothing about print and do not have to involve any qualified printer or designer in the awarding committee unless the contract is over €150k – mental!
I knew a fella once….. Blah blah blah
I don’t think many would disagree with the notion of trying to improve the efficiency of spending vs the quality & quantity of actual services provided.
I’m hardly an expert on public sector pay, but one other area that I think tends to inappropriately raise salary levels, especially as it goes up the scale is the common system of automatic increments, usually on a years of employment basis. Such increments really do not exist in the private sector & I doubt there’s really much rationale for most of them in the public sector either. As far as I understand it, these increments were protected in Croke Park, resulting in many getting pay rises when wages have actually been falling in much of the private sector.
But lets get one thing straight – and this is where Aaron, typical of near all business people, gets his economics very confused – the point about getting a fairer (& aggregate lower) pay bill in the public sector should be about keeping front line jobs and restoring services to the most vulnerable in society who have been targeted for cuts. Not saving overall government spending.
Aaron demonstrates his confusion by on the one hand talking about spending the money saved more effectively & then also banging on about how much the country is borrowing & implying we should use the savings to reduce this.
Which is it Aaron?
One lot of savings by wage/payroll reform. Are you arguing to restore the services that have been devastated in some areas, or are you really just flying the ‘austerity’ flag & trying to make it look more reasonable?
If it is the latter, which I suspect, given the relative weight & word count given to it, then Aaron, you should stick to the +micro+ economics of running your business and leave the +macro+ economics of a nation to those who properly understand it.
The mistake you make is called the ‘fallacy of composition’ after Keynes, 80 years ago. For most of those 80 years, this concept was completely accepted by the mainstream of economics. Incredibly – and one can point to the vested interests of a very wealthy elite for causation – it has been ignored these last 5 years since the banking bust.
Not sure how many times I must explain this, but here we go again…..
In a national economy, if everybody, at the same time tries to save, the total aggregate spending is reduced, then people are going to lose their jobs. It can’t be any other way.
When people lose their jobs, even less wealth is created in total, resulting in – & this is the ‘fallacy’ – people quickly become less able to save because someone’s spending is always someone else’s income. The national economy works in a closed loop.
For ‘national’ economy in our terms, we should consider it really to be the entire Euro zone, because we share a common currency.
And this is where we see this exact ‘fallacy of composition’ being played out. Overall, the private sector & households are maxed out on borrowing (because of the banksters’ & (haha) regulators’ scams) & rather than spend more, are trying to spend less & pay down debt. In the +aggregate+ (this is +macro+ economics, not Komplett.ie). Since the Eurozone, +as a whole+, has fairly balanced net imports/exports, there is only one other sector to consider – the public sector. Collectively, the various governments. When they all try to save money as well, at the same time (yes, even Germany, which doesn’t need to, is doing this) then overall spending of Euros in the Eurozone must go down. This is an ‘accounting identity’ – mathematical fact, can’t be any other way.
We then see +exactly+ the results such a +macro+ economic ‘sectoral balance’ (our accounting identity) analysis would expect – an increase in unemployment & either a general contraction or stagnation, at best. (Stagnation or a tiny amount of growth is possible because of population increase – new mouths, to an extent have no choice but to eat. But at this rate, the economies will take decades to recover.)
The Eurozone now has a record high unemployment of 12% – and the trend remains upward. This is why living standards for all of us are threatened or already going down. The authorities are adopting policies which can do nothing other than prevent 12% of our population from being productive. For no sound ‘economic’ or monetary reason whatever.
Overall, the Eurozone needs a spending stimulus to kickstart some real increase in economic activity & jobs which will then, in turn, enable more spending & more jobs to meet demand in a virtuous circle.
There is only one sector that can possibly do this – the government sector. And at the Eurozone level, we do not need to engage in some self defeating charade of robbing taxpayer ‘Peter’ to pay another taxpayer ‘Paul’, in a zero sum +macro+ economic game.
We have a currency issuing central bank & a fiat currency. Just as the ECB gave the banks €1,000 billion last year, it can provide every last cent we need in stimulus spending – on a ‘fair’, per capita basis. Call it ‘loans’ at zero interest, ‘QE’ or just gifted money – it does not make any difference as regards inflation UNLESS & UNTIL the stimulus is successful in restoring jobs, output & capacity.
Yes, it really is this simple.
And yes, our ruling elites really are variously pig ignorant in economics, blindly self-serving, uncaring about us, or some combination thereof.
They constructed a Pyramid banking & finance sector casino, which would inevitably bust – in principal, identical to the 1929 crash.
They have insisted, at every moment, that rather than the wealthy gamblers lose, ordinary citizens, not in any way responsible, must pay – and borrow huge sums, for years, to do so.
They have made precisely the same policy choices, ignoring the principles of macro economics, which are devastating the economies of Europe & to only a slightly lesser extent, the US (they did get a stimulus, albeit a totally inadequate one).
The results are self evident & getting worse.
If it walks like a duck……
‘As far as I understand it, these increments were protected in Croke Park, resulting in many getting pay rises when wages have actually been falling in much of the private sector.’
Just to correct this, page 32 of the 9th review by the troika states quite clearly that wages in the private sector have increased in the last few years, leading to higher income tax being collected. Lets stay factual please.
Page 32 of the Troika 9th review states no such thing.
Page 32 begins with the title:
“Figure 3. Ireland: Household Finance and Housing Developments, 2001–12 ”
and follows with a number of graphs, none of which relate to ‘….wages in the private sector…’
Yes, let’s stay factual, but not make them up.
On page 34 you will find:
“Figure 5. Ireland: Competitiveness Indicators ”
Where you will note that ‘Hourly Labour Rates in Manufacturing’ are continuing their last 5/6 year trending significantly lower than the Euro area as a whole.
Anecdotally, I personally know of many people who have ‘voluntarily’ been required to accept significant pay cuts (all of them in the private sector).
But, if you read my earlier post properly you will note that I’m stating clearly that arguing over who is bailing faster when the whole ship is going down is a stupid thing to be doing. (Or, as the mainstream economists are doing, rearranging the deckchairs…)
Plugging the holes – ie getting aggregate demand & employment back to (near) full capacity – is what we should be addressing.
To follow the (less than perfect) analogy, the Troika & ruling elites are breaking the ship up into planks & telling us crew members to use them as rafts, while they have taken all the (first class) lifeboats for themselves.
Amazing thing is 1/3 of people have given this story the thumb down over 55k squander and 1/3 of people don’t care or don’t want to know or object to anyone knowing about this insanity. WHY?
Mike Hall,
Excellent piece again. Please continue your explanations on why the Austerity agenda being pursued by our government and the Eurozone as a whole is economic suicide wherever you get the opportunity. It can’t be stated too loudly or too often.
If the ECB was truly acting in the interests of the majority of the Eurozone population, then it would simply create as many Euros as are necessary to stimulate economic growth and employment across the currency union. There actually is a ‘magic’ money tree if the vested interests can be forced to shake it.
The small insider elite benefiting from the crisis are well aware of this but they are supported (or at least not opposed ) by many millions who just don’t understand this simple truth and are kept largely in the dark by a compliant media.
These are the people that need to be reached and so independent contributors like yourself with an understanding of macro economics are vital in reversing popular but utterly misguided public opinion. The tide finally beginning to turn now with many admitting Austerity is a huge mistake having previously supported the policy.
for once someone is talking a bit of sense. aaron mckenna is on the ball on this one.
Sorry Aaronn , that’s not the sort of piece that’s liked here on the journal.
Admitting the government has a tough job is blasphemy and mentioning cuts or tax increases is equally frowned upon.
Champagne socialism… Let someone else pay for it!!
A truly depressing and small-minded article that even manages to crowbar a barely hidden reference to the nazis and WW2 into the first paragraph. Cheap, nasty and leaden. The author represents that dreary class in Ireland that Yeats scornfully remarked, “fumble in the greasy till and add the half pence to the pence”.
You don’t have to agree with him but perhaps you could offer an alternative as to how we bridge the €13 billion between revenue and expenditure.
But of course you won’t, you’ll just slate someone actually thinking about it who advocates something other than “burn the bondholders”. Pathetic.
What do you do for a living Mike? Its easy to stand back from an anonymous position and give a reasoned but one sided argument.
How about we don’t give away our natural resources. Corrib oil/gas field is worth 8 billion but further fields such as the Rockall and Porcupine Basins alone are likely to yield 10 billion barrels of oil equivalent. This is worth about €420 billion. Easy. And why not tax shell/statoil to the hilt
@ Pablo – there’s no one anonymous to the recession or cuts.
@ Brian – well done for actually offering a solution, of part there of. We could certainly insert a royalty but the investment (and risk) is unbearable by the government. All the barrels that may be there may not be reachable and, as you say, have yet to be extracted.
Protecting natural resources is one thing. Would you be happy for the spoils of our natural resources to be squandered through inefficient services. When we are finished plundering our natural resources what will our children do.
p.s. Read the legislation and tax law for our natural resources. You will see that following the early rewards the speculators get if they are, 1) successful in finding the resource and 2) bringing it onshore, there will be generous reward for the nation. (How we squandered our fisheries on the other hand was inexplicable)
I just think for a balanced and reasonable debate that if someone is going to give a scathing review of someone else’s job, be they a road sweeper in the council or a consultant in the HSE, then that person deserves to know if you are selling houses or hedge funds thats all. For that matter Aaron is a businessman, what business Aaron? Its just a pity we did not have this one sided debate 10 years ago about the wages and conditions of builders, estate agents, financial service employees and the like.
@ Brian Canavan. Kosmos Energy (Dallas, USA) are the latest international firm to ‘farm in’ to Irish Offshore Oil and Gas. It is all happening off the coast … http://www.Trillions.ie
You can’t tax something that’s still in the ground,it could cost billions to get the oil out if they can even get it,the government is not and can’t risk that kind of money we need solutions now not 10 years down the road
I think you will find Mike that there are people public and private that are doing alright. For the most part these people will not be directly affected by pay cuts in the economy. Spenders will.
Any vested interest Mr O’Toole?
This obsession with front line public servants (whose work it goes without saying is essential and valuable) in contrast to those whose work is less visible and less obviously valuable is ridiculous and dangerous. There is an inherent risk there that we go down the route of treating some people’s work as heroic and valuable, while looking on other’s efforts as unimportant and expendable.
The reality is that there are lots of public servants who are not front line workers who work hard and have a valuable and important role in society. Yes, there are those who just put in hours but not the effort, but they exist everywhere and it’s not confined to any one role. They may not be the majority but there are – shock! horror! – lazy nurses, poor teachers, time serving doctors and guards who are plain bad at their job. Equally there are receptionists who do a terrific and essential job and are practically running their workplaces, taking on responsibility well above their pay grade, which is often a very lowly one. Loads of others have jobs which appear mundane and boring when compared to someone busy putting out fires but which are nonetheless important in maintaining a healthy society.
The real issue in the public service is that there is no way of selectively losing poor performers, regardless of role. Probably there is about 5% or even less who are either useless at what they do, terminally lazy or otherwise not worth their salary. Not so different really from the percentage in any private workplace. If even 20% of these non-performers could be enticed to take redundancy, that’s 3000 jobs right there. But of course it won’t happen, those who take voluntary redundancy are too often the ones who are better at their job and have most ‘get up and go’, the very ones we need.
I’m not, and never have been, a public servant by the way.
But you are articulate Katie does!
Ireland’s financial problem is that public spending exceeds income not simply that the public service costs too much. Over reliance on stamp duty instead of a devolved central and local income tax left the coffers very bare when the crash came, coupled with the explosion in the social welfare bill with several hundred thousand forced out of employment. The shortfall is not the fault if the public servants and under Croke Park they reduced public spending by 3-5 billion. The recent no vote to CP-2 is a cry from the heart – “we won’t vote for a 3rd reduction in our living standards, if you want to do it Taoiseach you will have to choose the mechanism and vote it through the Dail.”
Maybe the government will send “Aarons” into the schools, hospitals, institutes of technology to weed out the slackers leaving them leaner and meaner, that is their prerogative. We will wait and see.
As a teacher i can only speak of education cuts. I 100% agree that there are teachers coast along feeling entitled to a job but there are thousands more who devote their lives to the job. Anyway, that’s not the point, If you ‘weed out’ the poor performers in a job such as teaching, you don’t really make savings. The posts would have to be filled again, to insure children had a teacher. I presume firing bad nurses would result in the same? Other savings could be made in education. For example how about taking some of the unemployed construction workers off the dole to build new classrooms on a state funded scheme? Earning a percentage more than they would on dole, and thus save on the 180k per year rental costs of EACH prefab classroom? This would improve conditions for children, teachers and that unemployed electrician/plumber we all know.
Sorry that 180k should have been 18-20k!!
Typical public service attitude. We just leave bad employees in place because we won’t save money in getting rid of them. What a stupid stupid comment.
I didn’t say leave them I said they wouldn’t save because they would have to be replaced.
Katie, I think the useless coasters are way more than 5%.
You only see the frontline visible staff, behind the scenes it is a joke what goes on.
Stories from my family working in CC where they freely admit to this, they say nobody is ever reprimanded, there is a inbred culture of waste and inefficiency.
Paul, you seem to have a lot of anecdotes, and you’re always on theses threads public service bashing at every possible opportunity.
Any actual evidence this time?
Werejammin, sure, I will post the name of my sister in law that works for the HSE in a public forum.
That will really help her in her job with her boss and colleagues.
Werejanmin, if you post your own comments using your real name that will qualify you to make comments about other people using real names.
So we’ll take that as a ‘no’ then.
“Werejanmin, if you post your own comments using your real name that will qualify you to make comments about other people using real names.”
How do we know you’re really Paul Doyle?
Werejammin, you got me. My real name is Bertie.
Is your full name Bertie Basset, cos you’ve been posting Allsorts of nonsense on the public sector threads….
Werejammin, I like that one, Bertie Bassett, all sorts. Clever response.
Actually it’s Bertie the complete and utter gobsh1te that screwed the Irish economy and fuc4ed this country and can afford to have a great time on a massive pension that I am paying for Aherne.
Public servants taxes are also paying his pension Mr. Bassett.
Public sector workers receive 100% of their income from taxation on the productive sectors of the economy. That is not in any way a judgement on the value of PS workers, however if that basic fact continues to elude the intellectual grasp of PS workers then we’re going to have even more interesting times ahead.
This is a fantastic opportunity to throw off the shackles, the unions have left themselves wide open.
Funny thing is, the unions were for a yes vote to CP2 – this is people power. People in general need to start standing up for themselves – enough with this posterboy nonsense. I do agree that one-size-fits-all approach will never work, either to achieve efficiencies or satisfy workers.There are specifics in all sectors that could achieve savings.
I agree Arron.
Its better to be pruned to grow than cut up to burn
Yes, but prune middle & senior management first …
Brain dead . He should think about what he writes first . Do you not value teachers . You drop you kids in at 9 and collect 5-6 hours later . Not only are they teaching your kids but they mind them too will those of us who have jobs are trying to work . Hitting sections of PS will have a knock on effect even in the private sector.
Did you even read the article????
If I hear another comment about teachers “minding” children! Does this mindset actually exist amongst teachers. They knew what they were signing up for. To teach groups of children:young people. THIS IS THEIR JOB. GET ON WITH IT. Sweet Jesus.
Nice to see how much you value the people who educate your children.
You mean the people who use the children as weapons every single time they don’t get their own way?
I can’t wait until teachers strike. They will face a public backlash never witnessed before.
Stop jumping on the wagon and read what he said properly!
Man on the street. Teachers would hardly be listened to otherwise. Its the nature of their job. Dont bullshit the issue by implying teachers should be a selfless profession. People work for money to feed themselves and pay bills and teachers are no different.
You mean like stopping the kids playing outside on their breaks, like they did a few years ago to get more money? Vocation my arse.
That was work to rule.
That was work to rule. Ane sure are teachers not entitled to their break?
Would ye be happy if we just charged teachers a fee for the privilege to teach our children.
^^^^^ now there’s a thought. How much do you think we could raise?
I totally agree! We need to pay & keep our essential public sector staff like nurses midwives teachers doctors physios etc.
Excellent article – right on the nail.
Break the unions, ha ha ha ha ha fool, watch as the government rows back on the across the board pay cuts and goes back to the table
Initially thought article had the hallmarks of newstalk’s public sector – bashing but is very incisive and thought provoking. All lobby groups use the needful as a shield, farmers in particular. Peace in our time. Idon’t think so. The appetite is there for a strike but collective action is a thing of the past and the government are ready to undo union power.
Excellent article and a fair assessment of what needs to be done. But, and it’s a big but, it’s a hard path for any government to tread and the shouty folk will be arriving any time now. I believe this would work and the alternative simply leads to the pit.
The government has a great chance to lay down a marker with the Teachers. The same shower of reality dodging leeches who sacrificed their newly qualified colleagues in order to protect their own pay and conditions are now threatening industrial action. A real government would now be rubbing their hands in glee.They’ve bee handed an opportunity to destroy this crowd of selfish bastards once and for all.
Teacher Rodrigo yeah? Any knowledge or understanding of the job? Didn’t think so… Stick to the difficulties in your own job and ill stick to the problems in mine
Everyone was in school so everyone is an expert of teachers… Idiots!
Haha! Oh lads Ye are doing nothing to help the bashers side with comments like that! At least the bashers make some remote effort to come up with facts and figure etc
Everyone who went to school is a teacher expert…idiots – possibly my favourite quote of all time, it was so good I laughed at the stupidity of it! Then again, who am I to judge? I’m only an idiot myself apparently! I’m startin to feel like our old pal Reg on this- applying similar comments to everything!
Bro, do you even read sarcasm?
Kind of hard to read it in that to be honest!
First sentence is sarcastic. Idiots is judgement on thr people who think teaching is a cushy number.
I’m newly enough qualified and I think there should be a general strike. I have had a lot of support and help from the permanent teachers and schools try to help us who look for work. I worked for four hours this week and people must remember that permanent contracts are gone. The teachers employed now need an extra job. Sadly this is to the detriment of students.
The strike needs to be about the state of schools, the leaking roofs, the lack of sports halls, no technology, holes in chairs, holes in tables, broken windows doors. The standard of education here is plummeting and will become dangerously low very soon. Teachers need to have resources in their classrooms. Imagine If you were working in the private sector and you had to give a presentation and nothing worked. Also as has been said before. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys. Monkeys teaching students leaves us with a pretty woeful future!
But it won’t be about any of them things. It will be about money. As it always is with teachers. And they will use the kids as pawns against the government.
I agree @TheHeathen, not to mention cuts in supports SNAs and Resource hours. In this day and age the government want us to go back to ‘chalk n talk’ teaching – they use our educated workforce to promote inward investment. Some foresight required here!
To try to say teaching isn’t a cushy number is to tal absolute sh!te
It’s about those things for me and many other teachers. The unions can take a hike I can’t afford membership anyway. Its always about money for them. If I wanted money I would change but I won’t because it’s the most rewarding job I’ve had and I’ve gone through quite a few.
Ag macnamh you’re correct forgot SNAs along with many other services disappearing. Hindsight will be the only thing we’ll be thinking about in the future.
It’s also very worrying how many people view education here now. It’s the key to everyone’s future!
To say that comment is ignorant is an understatement…
If its so handy then step up and do it?
My mother is a teacher and she says it’s a cushy number, even for those who work hard and are good teachers. I have a number of friends who are teachers and they all privately admit it’s a cushy number. No performance targets, no performance reviews, no work later than 6 in the evening for most (plenty go home at 3.30 and do nothing), massive MASSIVE summer holidays, mid-term breaks, most don’t even have degrees in the subjects they teach which is a disgrace, easy extra cash for correcting exams with specific grading schemes provided (literally a tick the box exercise), almost no internal competition among employees for promotions etc. Don’t try to fool yourself and say it’s not a cushy number. Some teachers may have difficulties because of the schools they work in but it’s by no means a pressure intensive career. I don’t want to be a teacher, I don’t think I’d be a good one so that’s why I don’t do it. I don’t do jobs because they’re easy, I do them because I enjoy them.
Well if you post it, it must be true.
To all those who claim that you can’t really understand whether teaching is a cushy number unless you work as a teacher …. the obvious retort is why don’t *you* try something else. Then you might realize that yes, relatively speaking, teaching IS *relatively* cushy. Even now the supply of applicants is greater than the number of places. And before you start coming back trying to prove how hard it is, I’ll say right now: it is a hard and worthwhile job, no question. Still relatively cushy.
Some facts.
1) That government are broke
2) We have a over paid public sector except for front line and junior staff
3) unions won’t accept any more cuts.
Solution anyone?
Private sector has adjusted pay and slashed jobs to remain competitive… If they didn’t they went into liquidation.. Public have to take more hits, leave the front line and low pay staff and cut pay and fire management.. If they don’t like it leave Ireland like what I’m doing next month
Solution.
Stop paying debt we dont owe. Problem solved in public service pay. Simples.
We have very low rate of corporation tax yet we don’t even collect that. Start there then tax the wealthy. Then slash the seanaid, cut the amount of TDs, cut all their wages a bit along with expenses. Shut down all ridiculous committees and fire the gangs of advisors. Stop the overseas budget for two years. If we recover quickly we can send out more money sooner!
I think then the public and private sectors would be willing to talk much more with openness and honesty.
Too good to be true, just like most “simple” solutions. Did you ever hear of the little thing called the public spending deficit? The reason we got such a bad deal on the banker’s debt is because we are borrowing money every year just to maintain public spending. The government and PS is effectively being bribed.
Few things I’ve noticed/want to ask/
1) Private sector workers seem to view their jobs as more worthy than public sector workers. They say the public sector workers have a sense of ‘self entitlement”, but it seems that their jobs are somehow more important and contribute better to the economy. Where this perception has arose from I don’t know, but I suppose throughout the world people view public sector workers have cushy jobs.
2) Is it true that any company’s admin staff make up about 50% of the bulk of workers ? People doing HR/management tell me this, but it’s not exactly something you can google up and get accurate results…
3) There are tons of redundant posts in the public service (hospitals at least, where I work.) Often me and colleagues here how a new post was created for someone who rubs shoulders with the upper echelons. A clerk that was due to retire was brought back by her friend the general manager to become our education officer. She never even brought up a video link or anything for our lectures or any programmes.
4) Completely agree with comments about making it easier to fire staff who aren’t performing. Too goddamn much absenteeism. I once looked at the absenteeism rates in the hospital I worked at in some departments, and I was just appalled. What are these ‘sick staff”doing? Rolling around in discarded samples from the microbiology lab?
justin I dont think it is a matter of private sector seeing themselves as more worthy, What they see is their workplace where they are subject to extreme market pressures and possible job loss, and a Public sector which is highly inefficient and not subject to this pressure. clearly society needs and desrves an efficient Public service with motivated, happy and productive employees. To a large extent the union Policy of sending the frontline employees out as the public face of any negotiation without allowing any analysis of where the real inifficiencies occur in the system is causing much of the devisiveness.
Your second question no company could survive with 50%of the staff in admin go to a supermarket how many managers to staff? an hotel? an aeroplane. !0 to 15% perhaps
I think your comments 3 and 4 illustrate where the public sector sees the problem.
An aeroplane isn’t a business
Sorry, an aeroplane isn’t a company is what I meant to say
Groan. That’s not the case Mr Loon. Most of us have cut our cloth to our circumstances, we have no other choice. It just gets tiresome listening to the PS workers and realizing how deeply engrained the entitlement culture really is. What is particularly galling is that most of them are so defensive at this stage that they don’t realize that genuine reform is actually in their best interests. I’ve been amazed at some of the stories I’ve heard about incompetent management in the PS: that hurts all of us. CK II was just another example.
They could start by cutting the number of TD’s in Leinster house.
Like Joe, I can only comment on the health sector where I work. The shortage of nurses on a daily basis is making it difficult for nurses to do their jobs effectively. However this is compounded by the shortage of support staff. The belief that nurses are needed more than clerical staff or other staff is a bit of a myth. In the absence of clerical support there are delays in patients notes being obtained, results filed in charts and letters sent to GPs advising them on what care their patient was given. Some of these tasks are then completed by the nurse or Doctor to ensure safe care. There are many other examples in our hospital where the absence of one group of staff or the reduction in numbers has an effect on care delivered. I agree there are still efficiencies to be gained in the public sector but I think unless you are intimately familiar with how a service works, it is easy to make assumptions about what a service needs to make it function and we all know what happens when we assume. ( you make an ASS out of U and ME)
There is also the factor of the constant ‘Eddie Hobbs’ type approach of a collective classification of ‘the Public Sector’ versus Private Sector given excess airtime on the media that does nothing for the debate but further divide the public. The likes of him need also to recognize this difference within the Public Sector rather than consistently barraging them with the same criticism
Great article which sums the situation up neatly in comprehensible terms.
Aaron you are away with the fairies lad. I think your are one of Enda bitches. True blue shirt you are.
Yet another terrible article from this author.
I have found this author to have poorly developed thought processes which have been clearly evident from past articles.
Again, another solution to our problems using rather narrow solutions.
We need bigger, better ideas at this stage. Such things as telling private banks to embrace capitalism and to ditch their love of socialism, ditching the euro, having our own currency, ditching compounded interest, getting out of the world ponzi scheme.
A country now so rotten at the top that it smells and its getting near time for the common people to use people power to bring on a new republic with truth honour and justice where people have the right to an open and transparent system both in government and the courts and not a cartel that operates behind closed doors
Public servants have already ‘sacrificed’ an average 15% of their wages to help get the nations finances back on their feet. What have you done?
Funny Aaron, how you never mention people like yourself, i.e. the high earners, paying a higher rate of tax of 48% on what they earn above 100,000 which would bring in the same amount as hitting the public service yet again.
Good ol’ Aaron, always willing to declare how everybody not like him needs to do more.
So what you’re saying is, “quick, look over there…” You want this gov to tax others to keep an inefficient bloated service we don’t need? That’s nice…
You keep talking about this inefficient bloated service but won’t explain yourself. Ans whats this ‘tax others’ crap? Public servants taxes are also used to fund the public service.
This is fairly basic stuff oreilly.
You said it yourself. You want anyone on a decent wage to pay more to sustain your wage. Why should they?
How are they paying more when my wage is not increasing and the overall public service bill is dropping? The extra 300 million is needed due to Ireland inc. not meeting its targets, not the public service not meeting its targets.
Check the numbers werejamming, the overall bill to the taxpayer has stayed pretty much the same over the last few years because of pensions and increments. If it wasn’t for the PS spending deficit we could negotiate a much better deal on our other borrowings.
1bn jammin. You hear that? 1 bn over 3 years has to come from PS payroll. It’s because of this Ireland inc may not meet its targets. You were voting for job security. You pissed it away cause you think think the gov and the public fear you. Think again. Just look at todays posts and pattern of red thumbs. It’s the first time I’ve seen opinion go against the PS. And as your union leaders ratchet up the threats against a government who has not been able to protect the private worker, more will tire of your self serving rejection of job security. Strike. See how much sympathy the unemployed and destitute have…
The troika polices are destroying Ireland economical and socially. If we don’t change direction soon we are looking at a Greek style tragedy – just more slowly.
Simple as the private sector ( banks, accountants, developers ) caused the crisis and have left it up to society to cover their losses
There has being no reform of our financial sector, accountancy firms, lawyers etc
So no these private sectors have not played their part in solving the crisis they caused
Legislate. It’s clear consensus will never be reached. It’s sickening to hear the threats from unions when they got hysterical anytime a minister spoke about having to legislate – calling them bullies. This gov needs to do what they were elected to do. Get it done. Now…
The government have broken the agreement in place and are the ones doing the threatening i.e. legislating unilaterally. Nice spin o’reilly.
About time these fascist bullies were called on their threats.
About time you guys woke. Can’t afford you all, don’t need you all….
Which ones do you not need oreilly?
Yeah O’Reilly which ones seen as you’re in Human Resources it seems?
We don’t need 270,000 for starters. We don’t need those who only work a set roster when flexability is needed. We don’t need those that under perform and coast through the system. We don’t need those that allow it to happen. We don’t need as many managers that are in the system. We don’t need all those different types of job classification – PS clericals/admin should be flexible across all departments. We don’t need all those that are employed to offset the inflexibility of long serving PS workers who say no to reform…
Ok, so you’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Our public service is not oversized, thats a well established fact. And you’re just repeating the soundbites instead of offering up any plans or proper examples.
i take it you’ve never worked for any length of time, or at all, in the public service?
Ok so you’re a typical PS worker who sees themselves as representative of the whole service and thus are blinkered. The only reason the gov are looking to ” negotiate” pay cuts is because the gov hasn’t the balls to force compulsory redundancy on a service that’s well established to be too big and inefficient. You clearly have been there too long. You need to get out. Oh wait. Where would you go? And where would you get such guarantees…
Fed up of unions and govt negotiating to protect and mollycoddle 270,000 on the backs of 1.7m private sector.The quicker we get strikes the better and we will see how much sympathy exists. Thank god Croke Park is dead.
Great article only question now is does ireland have a public service or does the public services have Ireland?
Jaysus, that very good aidan, you should tell that one to the fire crew cutting you out of a car wreck if you’re unlucky enough to ever be in a serious accident.
I love all the veiled threats that PS workers like to issue, or rather I find them despicable. You’re not doing your case any good with this tripe.
Government promised to dissolve the senead (there friends lose jobs) and it does not look close to happening. So the government can cut the bottom out of society and pit the general population against each other but will not cut out other politicians. Radical thinking is needed and an end to stroke politics. Croke park 2 won’t fix an already broken country the changes must start at the top if you want them to work at the bottom! There is not a member of Leinster house struggling to pay bills. Did they not take out loans in the boom! Ask yourself why this is. Corruption is rife, the parish pump still rules just look at minister Hogan for the proof
The problem is we live in a tax haven run by accountants.
There is a case that people on big money bought big houses ,big car’s joined golf club’s on the basis
of what they were earning ,if their money is reduced they are in trouble the same as anyone else
Depending on the persons age the loan should be stretched out at no extra interest cost ,maybee a little balloon payment at the end of ,this or some arrangement should be made to allow some sort of normal living
The new trevellion type of arrangement’s will cause breakdown’s ,people can’t live long term under pressure with no hope unless they are put in concentration camp’s and forced to
The same go’s for people at all level’s of society
I find it hard to listen to our leader who is apparently getting € 40000 more than the French president
Telling people they are costing too much ,even though it is true
Usually a source of fresh thinking, here you have fallen into a staid old rut. Point of information, the unions didn’t do down Croke Park 2, that was a democratic decision of the members. Perhaps democracy is something else we should throw overboard in order to “get there”. Here’s my analogy. A marauding horde (the troika, stay with me) reach our shores and find 2 cities. Private city and Public city. All citizens had a choice as to which city they lived in. Having sacked and plundered Private city, the aggressors turned their attention to Public city and found they could not gain entry because unlike Private city, they had an armed garrison who stoutly defended. Private city citizens complained and said, “that’s not fair, take their defences away, we have been plundered and they should be too. It’s a matter of identifying the real problem.
A rather ideological and superficial article.
Good article. I know plenty of outstanding civil servants, however, there are equally plenty of chronicly lazy, underperforming civil servants with no drive or who just don’t care. The problem is that the performance review/personal development system is not effective. Managers don’t want to be seen giving underperforming people low scores on their PMDS. Even if someone did score a consistently terrible score, they’d never be fired anyway.
Speaking of managers, theres way too many middle management in the civil service. There’s also too many people who have been in their roles too long, and are jaded and uncaring towards the people they are supposed to be “serving” as it were.
Finally, HR departments in the civil service don’t match the right candidate to the right role. I know people with degrees in one area but HR put them in a completely different area, not allowing them to shine in their subject area.
Heard a great story from a supplier, a printing company in Rathcoole that sums up the civil service. They went for a print tender with citizens information board, quoted about €90k on the job, a design company won the tender at about €145k. The job involved a small portion of design but the CIB went with the designer because they wanted a Rolls Royce to get from a to b when a Ford Mondeo would have done the same job.
They want the best of everything for themselves and are using our money to do it.
The funny part about the story is that CIB. run MABS who are charged with telling the people of Ireland how to save money in difficult financial times.
This is typical of civil servants mentality to spending our money, they have not got a clue and don’t give a sh1te!
“This is typical of civil servants mentality to spending our money, they have not got a clue and don’t give a sh1te!”
90%+ of civil servants have no say in how money is spent, and given the tendering processes in place the last few years I find that anecdote highly dubious.
Bloody private sector investing our money and losing billions
I know most have no say, and I have heard that some are very good buyers but giving unqualified and untrained employees massive budgets is mental in any industry.
Do you know why your supplier friend was turned down i.e. why they were not successful with the tender?
This article fails to take into account the impact of wage slashing and redundacy would have on the workers concerned, there are people and families behind the numbers. So we d take people it of employment and change the govt pymt made to them from wage to social welfare payments, thus reducing there spending which is what is necessary to re grow the economy. Many lower paid civil servants are already in mortgage arrears so pay cuts or redundacy would impact further. As the article points out we re spending more than we are collecting therefore getting ppl back to work to me seems to be another useful tool in cutting govt . If those in kildare st put as much energy into plans for getting ppl back to work as they do in targetting public sector we might be more”going somewhere”. There simply doesn’t appear to be any approach by Richard Bruton or Joan Burton to the problem in fact neither of them seem to realise both of there depts need a joint approach .
The idea that new employees in the public sector get paid lower rates than their colleagues is grossly unfair and erodes morale. A system that protects pay rates and is happy to humiliate new workers is rotten. Common sense is not prevailing. No more holding hands with the unions. Most of their historic fights to protect workers have been won and are legislated for. What are they for now…? Unions should protect workers from injustice not protect their members from reality. The real workers that need protection in this country are working for our spoilt multinational sector. The unions bosses need to retrieve they’re reason to be and their sense of ethics. For now we should step over them or push through them. They remind me of bankers…
The reduction in pay for new entrants in the public service was unilaterally introduced by the government, at a time when Croke Park was being introduced. To have opposed it would have led to the breaking of the agreement and a cascade of abuse from the public.
In the Croke Park-2 ‘negotiations”, several unions made a bid for new entrant pay rates to be brought in line with current pay rates, but with out success.
Wrong, this was a grotesque solution and I wonder if it’s even legal. It is unbelievable that this was accepted by the unions/staff. I think a principled stand on this issue would have met with some public favour, instead it looked like the existing staff were content to protect their positions at the expense of everybody else, even their own colleagues.
The big problem we have is that there is no stimulus in the economy. The gov should be spending on infrastructure projects like broadband, water, sewerage and transport. However as we are in the euro and Germany is in control we are unable to take that action. The private sector is bust having shed thousands of jobs. It can only create jobs if people are given money and credit to spend. We can only hope that after the German election things change. There is the possibility of parties emerging in countries like Italy and Spain who will pull out of the euro and the landscape will be totally changed.
The whole euro project has to be looked at. It is at the heart of our problems.
The penny also has to drop that populations cant continually increase. That will be a major issue going forward as we have more older people dependent on welfare. Can Europe hold together and manage all these issues? It will need great leadership and communication. The days of burying money in the Cayman Islands has to end. How many yachts does one need? The wealth has to be spread fairly.
Too much focus on pay and not enough on work practices, albeit public sector pay is significantly higher than European comparisons. I know it is not a popularly held view, but if unions demand no compulsory redundancy, three should be a price. Secure pensions too – what’s the premium for that? In terms of frontline people, I am consistently amazed at their dedication, Care and professionalism and the general perception is that frontline people earn less that the hidden layers of middle management, who are earning a multiple of many real working people. I’m rambling now……… Make change happen………there will be no sympathy for shrinking public sector people among the many unemployed and well as private sector tax payers…….sorry……
Make change happen………there will be no sympathy for shrinking public sector people among the many unemployed and well as private sector tax payers…….sorry……
Public sector workers pay taxes too, indeed they carry more than their fair share of the burden – 18% of workforce, 39% of income tax.
Again, where does public sector pay actually come from? Does it come from the magic money tree outside leinster house? The numbers you cite reveal the extent of the problem, but your comprehension of what they actually mean is deficient. Can we simply increase PS pay and/or numbers to solve this problem?
McKenna. You haven’t got a bloody clue. You want to punish the lowest paid public and civil servants that did not cause the mess this country is in so that money can be saved to fund a Govt that have no idea how to run a Country or how to fight for their own people within the EU (our EU friends that are not really our friends at all).
I will agree that reform needs to take place in the Public and Civil Service but from the top down, not the other way around.
When the Celtic Tiger was alive and kicking I can remember people scoffing at the fact that I worked in the Civil Service and at the money I was on. I remember having the piss taken out of me over the fact that factories got a bonus but we never did. The Civil / Public Service was considered a joke to be working in when compared to the money that could be earned in the Private Sector.
Now here we are at the point where I am earning too much and I have it too handy and apparently I have been overypaid for years.
All this hype of course is allowed by the Govt because it furthers their own ends which is that of getting the public on side for whatever cuts they want to introduce on the Public / Civil Service whom have already been hit TWICE before.
So as far as I am concerned, I am ready to strike and watch this country fall down around my ears rather than work for less money and be expected to be a slave. It’s the Civil and Public SERVICE not Civil and Public SLAVES.
“(Today, it’s worth pointing out, thanks to privatisation we likely wouldn’t see the rubbish piling up.)”
You been on the Northside recently? Privatisation is exactly why the rubbish is piling up on the streets.
If it is this Governments wisdom – that Bank’s et al. Should be bailed out and that LPT, Water Charges etc. be introduced as a consequence. That there have been Social Welfare cuts, mass Private Sector job losses, Emigration, etc. etc……..then that ‘ wisdom’ should be respected across the board. Why should 300,000 or so workers start to hold this Country to ransom. Suck it up…..like the rest of us! Otherwise’ should the Government back off from it’s fiscal targets, then all other austerity cut’s come back to the table!
have your say