Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
EVERY MORNING, TheJournal.ie brings you nine things you need to know with your morning cup of coffee.
1. #CROKE PARK: Talks are due to recommence today with the government seeking some €170 million in savings from public sector pay, RTÉ reports. Proposed savings would include a reduction of overtime and weekend payments as well as an extension of the working day. Yesterday the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) said it would not be returning to talks unless “rational proposals” are offered.
2. #FOSTER CARE: Two reports from the Health Information and Quality Authority have expressed concern that children are being put at risk because foster carers are not being vetted, the Irish Examiner reports. The reports also warn that families chosen to care for children who need specialised care are often picked simply because they are available.
3. #CHILD BENEFIT: Some 400,000 families may face a tax on children’s allowance with some families losing up to €53 a month, according to an expert report obtained by the Irish Independent. The report recommends a two-tier model that would see the basic level of pay lowered with families on the lowest income getting a top-up.
4. #GARDA CUTS: Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan has arranged to meet with the central executive of the Garda Representative Association (GRA) on Wednesday morning to discuss the proposed cuts to garda pay. This follows a strong statement from the GRA this week questioning Callinan’s awareness of the impact the cuts will have on his force.
5. #MATER HOSPITAL: The final Labour Party vigil will take place outside the Mater Hospital today as the new emergency department is due to open this weekend. The weekly event was established as a protest against conditions in the emergency department but with the news that it is moving to the new, highly improved, Whitty Building, the vigils will continue no longer.
6. #SHOOTING: Two men have been shot in north Belfast last night just 200 yards from a paramilitary style shooting earlier this week, The Irish News reports this morning. Locals reported hearing up to ten shots fired and one of the men, believed to be in his early 20s, is thought to be seriously injured.
7. #EMPLOYMENT: Multinationals in Ireland have seen a 15 per cent growth in employment in the past five years, according to the American Chamber of Commerce Ireland. US investment has increased 25 per cent in last 5 years, bringing total investment in Ireland to over $188 billion.
8. #FACEBOOK: Social networking giant Facebook has announced it was hit by a ‘sophisticated’ cyber attack last month but said it found no evidence that user data was compromised, AFP reports. The company said in a blog post that malware came from an infected website of a mobile developer.
9. METEORITE: A rescue and clean-up team of around 20,000 people has been sent to the Ural mountains in Russia following a meteor shower which blasted the area injuring some 1,200 people, BBC reports. The shockwave from the blasts blew out windows with most of the injured suffering from glass related wounds.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Dismiss whoever is responsible. The Civil Service unions may wish to reimburse the taxpayer.
Rory, you’ve hit the nail on the head there. Nobody can be fired like they can be for such incompetence in the private sector. This is the primary reason why the civil service is at best inefficient but mostly buffoonishly managed.
The real story is that it only took 7 months because we have the most effective, competent and highly paid public sector workers in Europe. We have to make sure that none of them would be poached away to the private sector, which is always looking for highly qualified people who can act quickly.
Poached?! Quick?! Effective?!!
BAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
That’s so hilarious I almost started crying!
Gross incompetence, that money could had kept around 50 SNA’s employed for the next year. Of course the protected civil servants will carry on regardless.
agreed with you whole heartedly…. it all has to do with common sense really…. if the country is bankrupt we need to be lookin after our few pennies… and those we have should be spent appropriately…. feel sorry for the teachers who now have to pay the money back… but the person responsible needs to held to account…. because there r no winners here… that money is badly needed elsewhere in the education system… yet the teachers r gonna get penalized for a faceless civil servants mistake where that money could be going towards the services that they need to educate the children of this country
What an inept bunch of yahoos. Do you really think the World hasn’t copted onto the fact that persons of authority in this country are incapbable to do their jobs? Why aren’t civil servants fired in this country?
Payment is done by a mix of VEC s, individual schools and Dept of Ed. No one central group of civil servants are responsible. Not as simple as sounds to “fire em all”!
1.1 million is news if it’s public sector! bankers wiped their arses with this everyday! The people who were overpaid were victims of being in. The wrong job at the wrong time! And remember they would of spent that money back into the economy not invested in the Bahamas!
Yiz are all very harsh demanding immediate firings.
Who is it that you want fired and should there not first be a process of warning and monitoring before kicking someone out of their job?
The comparisons to the the private sector are wrong – it is (quite rightly) difficult in the private sector to fire someone especially without going threough a lengthy ‘warnings’ process.
You are absolutly right… There should be a process before a firing. The issue here is that the systems are not in place in most of the civil service jobs. The system should include coaching, reviews and goals for all in employees. Raises and bonus should be performance based. The tragedy is…. The systems that are in place outdated and inefficient.
The act of firing is cause and effect. Furthermore, there are actions that should require immediate termination. One should be… The inability of fulfilling the role and responsibilities required for a said position.
I out to you… Why don’t people get fired in Ireland? Why don’t people resign their positions?
Yep, trial first then firing squad.
I garuntee the people that were overpaid will either pay back the least amount possible over the longest period they can
Or
The teacher unions will support them and will threaten action so in the end nobody will pay back anything or they will only pay back a certain percentage
In fairness, the people who were overpaid are not at fault. It’s the idiots in administration who can’t figure out how to implement the exceptionally complicated order to “cut salaries for new entrants by 10%”
Sure the teacher unions have completed shafted all new teachers to protect permanent teachers there for years. They will do nothing for the new teachers!
If I was a new teacher I’d be forming my own union as their own don’t care! While I believe they are over paid, I do think it’s unfair that someone with even 2 years more experience will be paid more for the same job! Should be cuts across the board
€1.1 million divided by 5,000 is €240. We are not talking about thousands of euros here- in fact it’s considerably less than the amounts paid out in politicians’ pensions each year.
Yes it was sheer incompetence to overpay them in the first place but the scaremongering by our public representatives & the media in an effort to further divide the public & private sectors is the most worrying factor of all.
what you won’t hear about are the tons of teachers who were underpaid what they were due for years that the dept now has to revisit and pay out on! i know of a good few teachers who have been underpaid for three to four years but didn’t realise because they figured it was just the way the pay cuts/pension levy and extra social charges etc went, so much so the dept have hired an I.T company to develop a system to help calculate what people are really due… and we all know how great an idea it is for the civil service to hire I.T companies to develop payment software!
Well said- but isn’t it great news that Enda will be reducing our working week to a mere 40 hours (39 is the current working week- but I guess we will do at least one additional hour per week anyway!!)
Cheers Enda
Well said- but isn’t it great news that Enda will be reducing our working week to a mere 40 hours (39 is the current working week- but I guess we will do at least one additional hour per week anyway!!)
Cheers Enda
Well said- but isn’t it great news that Enda will be reducing our working week to a mere 40 hours (39 is the current working week- but I guess we will do at least one additional hour per week anyway!!)
Cheers Enda
Amazing is how they aren’t observing the figures in real time or at least near time.
Still not as bad as the guards phone issuing
Fire them whether or which way and see what transpires. It would certainly make the Public Service wonder what the ramifications would be we’re the Courts to uphold the firing. Anyway , I cannot see how you would be wrong in firing even a civil servant for such a fundamental breach of contract of employment Blaithin.
Don’t get why so many thumbs down‽
I am saying faulty processes are just as bad as staff mix up.
Checks and balances are required.
what “Guard phone issuing”? whats that about?
Garda mobile phones had a budget a number of years ago. They overspent by over ten times and nobody noticed until the end of the year.
Nobody was watching it and it was massively abused. Meant for a selective but it wasn’t in practice
What Garda Mobile phones? Can you post s link to where you get your information?
Strange headline. paid teachers and staff. Teachers are staff. they are all employees of the dept of education.
It is roughly €250 on average per teacher….probably cost more to collect and administer
WELL I GOT MY LETTER THIS MORNING. WHERE IS IT GOING……INTO R. QUINNS PENSION PLAN!!! ITS WORSE WHEN YOU HAVE BEEN UNEMPLOYED FOR THE LAST YEAR AND CANT GET WORK.
have your say