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Do you want a Dáil dominated by Enda Kenny and independents?, ask the Green Party at today's photo op. Julien Behal/PA Wire

Daily Fix: Friday

Seven days to go until polling – time to catch up with the day’s winners and losers as the election hits the final stretch.

EVERY evening, TheJournal.ie brings your Daily Fix: our pick of the highlights (and some of the lows) of today’s campaign trail. Eight days to go…

GOOD DAY FOR:

  • Negative Campaigning - Single party government, anyone? At this rate there’ll be no friends left coming polling day. Fianna Fáil today issued SEVEN press releases attacking Fine Gael alone, while Fine Gael issued four attacking Fianna Fáil and one attacking Labour. Labour, meanwhile, issued just the one negative piece, merely criticising government policy on ghost estates.
  • Changing tack - Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny this morning told Morning Ireland that the next government would need to “work with trade unions in the interest of getting our country back on track”. Not one, but two Fianna Fáil TDs quickly pounced: Seán Fleming and Thomas Byrne both noted that the Five Point Plan sees the party promise to “take on vested interests”, naming trade unions as one target.

BAD DAY FOR:

  • Chris Andrews: The Fianna Fáil candidate looks like an outside bet to retain his seat in Dublin South-East, so this evening tried to boost his profile by calling on the Dublin Docklands Development Authority to investigate claims the Carphone Warehouse is not being allowed to renegotiate its rent in the CHQ building. Only one problem… CHQ is in Dublin Central. Whoops.
  • Charlie O’Connor: A Fianna Fáil clean sweep of Bad Days today. The Tallaght TD seeking re-election in Dublin South West got a smackdown from Fine Gael’s Simon Coveney when the former called for a cap on taxi licences – the only problem being that there’s one already in place. O’Connor was a “spoofer”, Coveney said. Ouch.

NON-PERSONALISED GENERIC EMAIL OF THE DAY:

Hot on the heels of Fine Gael’s personalised Valentine’s greetings unveiled on Sunday night, Labour has unveiled a tool where you can send a message to a friend, read personally by Eamon Gilmore, if you enter their first name, status and constituency.

Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t recognise every single name one might type in. So, while friends named ‘Eamon’ will get a message beginning “Hello, Eamon”, there are no similar recordings for the names ‘Enda’, ‘Micheál’ or ‘Gerry’. We therefore haphazardly guess that Labour only wants coalition with ‘John’ Gormley of the Greens.

POSSIBLE COINCIDENCE OF THE DAY

All three of the main party leaders will spend tomorrow off the buses (mostly, anyway) and will actually canvas in their home constituencies.

PHOTOSHOP OF THE DAY

The Green Party launched its party political broadcast today, and took the opportunity to channel the ghost of Michael McDowell and warn of the dangers of a government propped up by independents.

A photograph included in the press release showed a number possible high-profile independently-minded candidates who stand a chance of election – with each of them wearing familiar headgear.

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5 Comments
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    Mute Rory Conway
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    Sep 27th 2012, 3:53 PM

    Dismiss whoever is responsible. The Civil Service unions may wish to reimburse the taxpayer.

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    Mute Blathín Sullivan
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    Sep 27th 2012, 3:59 PM

    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.

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    Mute censored
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    Sep 27th 2012, 3:55 PM

    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.

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    Mute Aisling Walsh
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    Sep 27th 2012, 4:44 PM

    Poached?! Quick?! Effective?!!

    BAH HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

    That’s so hilarious I almost started crying!

    55
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    Mute Jack Eagle
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    Sep 27th 2012, 4:08 PM

    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.

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    Mute Cornelius Collins
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    Sep 27th 2012, 11:46 PM

    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

    1
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    Mute Marlon Major
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    Sep 27th 2012, 4:33 PM

    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?

    87
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    Mute the truth hurts
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    Sep 27th 2012, 5:26 PM

    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”!

    35
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    Mute Frieda Crehan
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    Sep 27th 2012, 8:37 PM

    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!

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    Mute Gagsy 99
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    Sep 27th 2012, 5:55 PM

    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.

    25
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    Mute Marlon Major
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    Sep 27th 2012, 7:19 PM

    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?

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    Mute censored
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    Sep 28th 2012, 2:07 AM

    Yep, trial first then firing squad.

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    Mute Barry
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    Sep 27th 2012, 6:04 PM

    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

    22
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    Mute Aaron McKenna
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    Sep 27th 2012, 7:13 PM

    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%”

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    Mute siobeli
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    Sep 27th 2012, 8:12 PM

    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

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    Mute Jeanie Mc
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    Oct 2nd 2012, 12:22 AM

    €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.

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    Mute Barry Healy
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    Sep 27th 2012, 7:56 PM

    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!

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    Mute Jeanie Mc
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    Oct 2nd 2012, 12:25 AM

    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

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    Mute Jeanie Mc
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    Oct 2nd 2012, 12:25 AM

    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

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    Mute Jeanie Mc
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    Oct 2nd 2012, 12:25 AM

    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

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    Mute Kal Ipers
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    Sep 27th 2012, 3:54 PM

    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

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    Mute Rory Conway
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    Sep 27th 2012, 4:58 PM

    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.

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    Mute Kal Ipers
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    Sep 27th 2012, 7:09 PM

    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.

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    Mute johnny
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    Sep 28th 2012, 2:33 AM

    what “Guard phone issuing”? whats that about?

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    Mute Kal Ipers
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    Sep 28th 2012, 3:25 PM

    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

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    Mute johnny
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    Sep 28th 2012, 8:21 PM

    What Garda Mobile phones? Can you post s link to where you get your information?

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    Mute mike
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    Sep 27th 2012, 6:05 PM

    Strange headline. paid teachers and staff. Teachers are staff. they are all employees of the dept of education.

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    Mute Ken
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    Sep 27th 2012, 8:04 PM

    It is roughly €250 on average per teacher….probably cost more to collect and administer

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    Mute Miriam Kelly
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    Oct 5th 2012, 11:46 AM

    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.

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