Any Chance Michael O Leary will become a Politician?

Colonel Sanders

God how I'd love to see this man clean up the Civil Service. I'd appoint him minister For Union breaking'. Imagine the civil service being run more efficiently with about 50% less staff.

In all seriousness tho something must be done to combat the massive inefficiences, massive over staffing and the fact that new civil servants are still being offered DB pensions at the taxpayers expense. There is a massive bubble being inflated re. public sector renumeration which can't be popped if an economic downturn comes. Very dangerous for private sector PAYE workers such as myself.

For example ryanair ha 15% less staff than aerlingus but carries 5 times the number of passengers and made over 5 times as much profit last year.

It will be interesting to hear the comments of politicians when they knock on my door.

Sgt. Sensible

Life wouldn't be worth living if the country was run like Ryanair.

flogen

Sgt. Sensible wrote:

Life wouldn't be worth living if the country was run like Ryanair.

Gotta agree with this; sure the civil service has plenty of extra fat on it but there's a balance between the two that could be struck if the right tactics were used.
It's easy to bash the entire civil service and say it's over paid, lazy etc. but that's not the case. Plenty do a great job and deserve to be paid well; there are plenty of free-loaders however and plenty of systems set up by Government that are ineffective... it's not quite the individual's fault if they're in an office that isn't working efficiently (although they do take some blame if they decide to be part of the problem by blocking change).

sovtek

I wonder how much MO should get paid for basically stealing someone else's idea, getting that same person to show you how to run a company based on his idea...and then using it to **** your customers and go about setting up a monopoly?
Thank Allah the unions are putting up a fight to keep this sadistic moron from completing his cunning plan.
One now knows for sure why Mick has been vehemently calling for the privatisation of Dublin Airport now.

oscarBravo

sovtek wrote:

...this sadistic moron...

There are lots of words you can use to accurately describe Michael O'Leary. "Moron" isn't one of them.

lostexpectation

who is are richest politician? with the most business interests/shares? or did have just before going for office?

Cronus333

Colonel Sanders wrote:

God how I'd love to see this man clean up the Civil Service. I'd appoint him minister For Union breaking'. Imagine the civil service being run more efficiently with about 50% less staff.

In all seriousness tho something must be done to combat the massive inefficiences, massive over staffing and the fact that new civil servants are still being offered DB pensions at the taxpayers expense. There is a massive bubble being inflated re. public sector renumeration which can't be popped if an economic downturn comes. Very dangerous for private sector PAYE workers such as myself.

For example ryanair ha 15% less staff than aerlingus but carries 5 times the number of passengers and made over 5 times as much profit last year.

It will be interesting to hear the comments of politicians when they knock on my door.

the reason for the staff difference is that Atlantic routes take longer and need more staff than European ones. Guess what Ryanair focus on?

Colonel Sanders

I never said run the country like ryanair, the main point of this thread is an attack on the waste of resources channelled into an overstaffed and inefficient civil service that is dominated by v strong unions which the govt are afraid of.

Colonel Sanders

Cronus333 wrote:

the reason for the staff difference is that Atlantic routes take longer and need more staff than European ones. Guess what Ryanair focus on?

what percentage of flights are transatlantic? Certainly not enough to justify such a discrepancy.

This thread wasn't just an attack on aerlingus but an attack on civil service inefficiency and the attitude of a govt that will yell 'how high' as soon as a union tells it to jump.

A recent report by deloitte showed that the ESB is wasting 100m a year on 'excessive' wages and poor powerplant maintenance. Yet the customers have to pay for this. Any company in the high st would use a 20% price hike as avery last resort after doing everything it could to eliminate inefficiencies and possibly to trim its workforce yet ESB are allowed hike the price of electricity without any cost cutting and despite the fact that oil prices have dropped significantly over the past month or so.

I'm not saying run the country like ryanair, I would just like a bit of value for money for my 42% marginal rate of tax.

daithimac

Can you imagine the pay cut mick would have to take in order to take a goverment job. I mean seriously what kind of pesant can live on less than a million a year

daveirl

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Colonel Sanders

maybe we could coax margaret thatcher out of retirement

Joking by the way. this sort of carry on just sickens me tho. I know the public sector service will never be as efficient as the private sector but there is such a thing as taking the p!ss.

sovtek

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

I seriously doubt he's going to be getting €0 out of RyanAir after leaving his current position.
Most CEO's still have stocks and other compensations coming to them.

daveirl

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democrates

Colonel Sanders wrote:

I know the public sector service will never be as efficient as the private sector but there is such a thing as taking the p!ss.

Is that even if Michael O'Leary were running it?

Colonel Sanders

democrates wrote:

Is that even if Michael O'Leary were running it?

Using M O'L's name in the subject for this thread was possibly a mistake as it led to comments away from the main subject matter, the lack of efficiency and sheer waste of resources in the public sector.

Colonel Sanders

Colonel Sanders wrote:

Using M O'L's name in the subject for this thread was possibly a mistake as it led to comments away from the main subject matter, the lack of efficiency and sheer waste of resources in the public sector.

And also smart arsed comments that add nothing to the thread.

democrates

Colonel Sanders wrote:

And also smart arsed comments that add nothing to the thread.

Sorry if I hit a nerve, but let's not descend into a slagging match either.

The point was to stimulate further analysis :
Is there something inherantly inferior about public servants that even MO'L can't solve?
In fairness I get the impression no one's going that far so park that.

Are there structural and organisational weaknesses in the public service?
I agree yes, on a number of fronts.
Ministerial accountability yields a culture of fear that suppresses innovation. "We did X the last time this situation arose and no one was shafted over it, we better just do X again". The top down hierarchy also takes decision-making away from those best positioned to innovate so the bosses feel they won't miss a problem. There is significant scope for allowing people more freedom to innovate.

Mismatch of resources and workload. Many areas are too busy chopping logs to sharpen the axe while others have 'handy numbers'. More use of the ability to temporarily re-allocate staff between sections and departments is indicated, though specialised skills and knowledge are an unavoidable constraint. Taylorist work factoring (or yellow-packing work) is a small part of the answer, but competent flexible IT systems are mainly lacking.

Unions. Too strong on resisting change and exacting compensation for it, ESB compensation is a damn disgrace and should be sorted, but privatisation is not the answer imho, fine, you might 'get the workers' as over time their pay and conditions are reduced, but look at examples in the uk, it's likely the liberated profit will be concentrated in the owners accounts, past performance is that the investors and senior management won't curb their appetite for money in order to be generous to customers with a big drop in the price of electricity. Let's sort it ourselves and recall that Telecom Eireann was making great strides in it's mandate to serve the people before it was turned into a private cash machine.

Transparency and accountability. More of it. We shouldn't have to depend on the media or upset citizens using the FOI Act to find out what's going on with our money and how our public sector is operating. This should be available online, again the IT infrastructure is key. Some elements in the hierarchy have been left to their own devices spending other peoples money since there was no public/media tension around that area, so hidden problems have been allowed to fester and bad decisions remain secret until disaster struck - think BTSB.

De-centralisation. Bite the political bullet and make it a long-term strategy that only deploys on a case by case basis when each area can be shown to benefit. The current plan if FF/PD's are arrogant and stupid enough to force it through will introduce more waste than any other measure in the history of the state. I suspect they're already bulking up staff numbers to give enough slack so they can move departments and still leave hoardes in dublin twiddling their thumbs. But there's another thread on that...

Solve these problems and you'll have a leaner more productive public service. Some people point out that the answer to all problems is not to simply throw money at it and I agree in general, but neither is the opposite strategy of reducing pay and conditions relative to the private sector and/or inflation a panacea.

For example the private sector workers understandably raging at the public sector DB pension. Don't knock it, get it! Join a union and fight for better pay and conditions for yourself. Choose flexitime. Choose DB pensions. Choose childcare facilities. Sound great? Aren't we worth it?

Of course there's the rub. We can't, employers tell us, because it would make us uncompetitive. But hey, isn't competition supposed to deliver us all from every evil? Seems paddy englishman, irishman, scotsman, chinaman, indiaman etc are all competing and so cannot have job security but instead ever-intensifying struggle to survive. And we all know that a hint of protectionism or any other measure that puts the interests of citizens ahead of corporations is the work of satan.

The paradox is, in the celtic tiger - now the second richest country in the world - we have the least ability to attempt any alternative. The axis of developers and the government have driven property prices through the roof. Young people buying a home are faced with colossal mortgages and have no choice but to compete like demons for high-paying jobs, but with the headline salary we are getting ever greater pension risk, tenure risk, and unpaid overtime.

If we're ever to extricate ourselves from this mess we must sort the public service yes, but people need to sort their own finances too. Debt-funded conspicuous consumption destroys your freedom and security. How long could most people pay the bills if they lost their job or depart to set up in business? That period of time is the real measure of financial security, not a 06 plate on your SUV to pretend to others that you're better off than you are. Thrift is the new black.

meglome

I know a few people in their twenties working for the civil service and they mostly do feck all. Some have since quit as they were going mental. Some when they tried to get though the work they had quickly were told to slow down as it would make some of the others look bad. I know managers in the health service who when they tried to give staff bad reviews as they were rubbish at their jobs were put under pressure not to.

My working life was spent either working construction when I was young to computers ever since and this kind of thing really fecks me off. I don't expect that the civil service will be as efficient as the real world but I'd at the very least like them to actually earn their productivity payments.

ballooba

democrates wrote:

For example the private sector workers understandably raging at the public sector DB pension. Don't knock it, get it! Join a union and fight for better pay and conditions for yourself. Choose flexitime. Choose DB pensions. Choose childcare facilities. Sound great? Aren't we worth it?

The key difference is that businesses are run for the benefit primarily of customers, otherwise there would be no business. Public enterprise on the other hand is run for the benefit of the civil servant.

The customer in public enterprise is represented by the politician. The politician is castrated by the fact that a large proportion of his customers (i.e. the electorate) work in public enterprise.

So those of us who work in private enterprise get bullied by public sector workers because they have the politicians by the balls. The power of the public sector workers is further increased by the fact that they vote en-masse, whereas Joe Bloggs private sector "doesn't have the time".

democrates

ballooba wrote:

The key difference is that businesses are run for the benefit primarily of customers, otherwise there would be no business.

That may be true for charities or social enterprises, but the primary goal of a business and particularly corporations is to concentrate wealth with the shareholders. Books like "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", "The Richest Man in Babylon" and countless others are honest and up front about this.

The role of customers is to supply the money, trade of products/services is simply the means and investors don't care if it's oil, concrete, water or weapons so long as the net result of transactions is the concentration of wealth in their accounts on the back of other peoples work. One article in the FT even went so far as to say CSR is illegal, as is any measure which interferes with shareholders interests (of course CSR is hogwash and just a branding exercise).

ballooba wrote:

Public enterprise on the other hand is run for the benefit of the civil servant.

The citizens are the raison d'etre in our role as 'customers, but some are also the shareholders and workers.

ballooba wrote:

The customer in public enterprise is represented by the politician. The politician is castrated by the fact that a large proportion of his customers (i.e. the electorate) work in public enterprise.

So those of us who work in private enterprise get bullied by public sector workers because they have the politicians by the balls. The power of the public sector workers is further increased by the fact that they vote en-masse, whereas Joe Bloggs private sector "doesn't have the time".

The civil-service is the right arm of the citizen, it's ours, we're the shareholders. The set-up as I've outlined previously is using more resources than necessary and are too much of a drag on our tax pool.

And yes, the politicians job is to run it like a board of management and ensure our assets and continuing tax contributions are employed wisely on our behalf. Are they doing it as well as they could? I don't think so. E-Voting, de-centralisation, project cost-overruns, missed deadlines, PPARS, PULSE, need I go on. Fine ROS and other measures are excellent and most of the things that go well day to day don't make the news, but the scale of the cock-ups this government has presided over is unprecedented and the reforms needed are not being implemented.

We can rail all day at civil servants but at the end of the day it's down to the politicians.

ballooba

democrates wrote:

That may be true for charities or social enterprises, but the primary goal of a business and particularly corporations is to concentrate wealth with the shareholders. Books like "Rich Dad, Poor Dad", "The Richest Man in Babylon" and countless others are honest and up front about this.

The role of customers is to supply the money, trade of products/services is simply the means and investors don't care if it's oil, concrete, water or weapons so long as the net result of transactions is the concentration of wealth in their accounts on the back of other peoples work. One article in the FT even went so far as to say CSR is illegal, as is any measure which interferes with shareholders interests (of course CSR is hogwash and just a branding exercise).

Yes, but if businesses don't represent a value proposition to customers then they will have no business so shareholders are irrelevant.

democrates wrote:

The citizens are the raison d'etre in our role as 'customers, but some are also the shareholders and workers.

In theory that is the way it should work, but humans are both selfish and social at the same time. Civil servants look out for solely their own interests and do the bare minimum of work.

The checks and measures that are supposed to counter balance those cirumstances don't work because the politicians have no power.

democrates wrote:

The civil-service is the right arm of the citizen, it's ours, we're the shareholders. The set-up as I've outlined previously is using more resources than necessary and are too much of a drag on our tax pool.

And yes, the politicians job is to run it like a board of management and ensure our assets and continuing tax contributions are employed wisely on our behalf. Are they doing it as well as they could? I don't think so. E-Voting, de-centralisation, project cost-overruns, missed deadlines, PPARS, PULSE, need I go on. Fine ROS and other measures are excellent and most of the things that go well day to day don't make the news, but the scale of the cock-ups this government has presided over is unprecedented and the reforms needed are not being implemented.We can rail all day at civil servants but at the end of the day it's down to the politicians.

Yes, the politicians are partly to blame but the civil servants should bear the brunt of the responsibility because as you said the politicians are only the board of directors, the civil servants are the ones mismanaging our money.

jd

Colonel Sanders wrote:

For example ryanair ha 15% less staff than aerlingus but carries 5 times the number of passengers and made over 5 times as much profit last year.
.

Some if the difference is accounted for by the fact that Aer Lingus does Long Haul, and also that Ryanair outsources as much as possible.

democrates

ballooba wrote:

Yes, but if businesses don't represent a value proposition to customers then they will have no business so shareholders are irrelevant.

I get that, no customers no revenue. The point is the end is wealth concentration, customers are the means, most certainly not visa versa. There are shades of grey of course from the local barber to big tobacco, we all have to eat and I'm a big fan of small businesses who work long hours, provide the bulk of employment, and are out to make a living rather than a killing.

It's important to make the distinction in life between those who are just interested in tapping your purse regardless of the direct or collateral damage, and those who are likely or indeed mandated to act in your best interests.

ballooba wrote:

In theory that is the way it should work, but humans are both selfish and social at the same time.

Balancing making a living with the greater social good I would call responsible, but where a person grabs way more than they need is selfish, and what drives that more than anything else on the globe? Our good friend capitalism telling us greed is good and to sacrifice all ethics on the altar of competition.

ballooba wrote:

Civil servants look out for solely their own interests and do the bare minimum of work.

That's an unfair generalisation. On one extreme there are some ESB workers in power stations with handy number and colossal salaries, at the other we have nurses run off their feet under life and death pressure for let's say modest pay.

As for CA's, CO's, EO's, HEO's etc throughout the various departments there's every shade of grey, even within one office you can have two workers with the same responsibilities but one carries far more of the load than the other.

That type of thing happens in the private sector too, and if you're looking for people who do little in comparison to their remuneration you might consider the investor elite. As of 2000, 50 of the 100 largest eonomies in the world were not nations but corporations. Granted it's easier to reform the public service than migrate to an alternative to global capitalism, nonetheless reform on both fronts should not be avoided just because it isn't easy, we need to get off this bad road of increasing excess and inequity.

ballooba wrote:

The checks and measures that are supposed to counter balance those cirumstances don't work because the politicians have no power.

Yes, the politicians are partly to blame but the civil servants should bear the brunt of the responsibility because as you said the politicians are only the board of directors, the civil servants are the ones mismanaging our money.

No doubt if you were a civil servant you'd rally fellow workers to take a pay cut, give up the db pension, security of tenure, flexitime, and so on and to re-structure the civil service:D. Just like workers in the private sector spontaneously do because they're more responsible...

Private sector workers are not on some glorious quest for the greater good, they're divided and conquered through labor competition, "here's the deal, take it or leave it, and if there aren't enough takers we're relocating to a cheap labour country".

Given the cost of living and hyper-consuming "because I'm worth it" mentality (driven by the private sector) in this country, I think it would be as niaive to expect public servants to drive the necessary reforms as it would to expect private sector workers to drive pay cuts and longer hours. What's that saying involving turkeys, christmas, and voting?

Should the public service be reformed? Yes.
Is it difficult? Yes.
Is it the ministers job to organise and drive that reform? Yes.
Do ministers have the legal power to carry out reform? Yes.
Are the ministers doing their jobs? A mixed bag, clearly not good enough or fast enough.
Would FG/Lab do any better? Who knows, but barring any big policy red lights I'm ready to give someone else a chance to wield Excalibur.

So fair enough you can blame comfortable public-servants as I blame politicians and rapacious global investors, but the real answer is not the blame game, but continuing analysis, driving for solutions, and being happy that you're doing your best under the circumstances. If I may, don't let the injustices deplete your ability to thoroughly enjoy yourself, don't let the f*ckers get you down.

ballooba

democrates wrote:

Would FG/Lab do any better? Who knows, but barring any big policy red lights I'm ready to give someone else a chance to wield Excalibur.

Indeed and incidentally, who cares. The FF fat cats are getting so comfortable with the low standards expected of them that they need a reality check. The only real way to do that in my view is to give FG/Lab/Green a go for a few years.

And by the way, I have worked in the public sector. It bored me to tears, I was too young to try and change things (had no power what so ever). It also disgusted me.

Colonel Sanders

any person i know who works in the civil service says they come and go to the office as they please yet are still paid for a full week. You have to look for work as none is given to you. The level of staffing and the level of wages coupled with a severly underfunded (after McCreevy raided the pension fund to defer public sector borrowing in his election budget) DB pension scheme is inflating a bubble that cannot burst if a recession comes. Who'll have to continue to pay for this then? You and me, the ordinary PAYE workers through increased direct and indirect taxes. We already saw this in the first 'stealth tax' budget after the last election.

I don't know whether a change in govt would lead to an improvement in the situation but in terms of who I'll cast my vote for I'm pretty much a single issue voter and it will be interesting to see what any politician who knocks on my door has to say on the subject

Mad Finn

democrates wrote:

That may be true for charities or social enterprises, but the primary goal of a business and particularly corporations is to concentrate wealth with the shareholders.

This is absolutely true when talking about the 'Anglo-Saxon business model' which many business editors, especially those on the right, like to advise us is the only one that really works. American, and British, publicly quoted companies are legally bound to act in the best interests of the shareholders and are answerable to those same shareholders. That is their first legal duty. There are other ways in which their duties towards their employees and customers are circumscribed eg statutory redundancy legislation, due process with regard to redundancy etc etc but there is no disputing the ultimate right of a board of directors to hire and fire and open and close in the best interests of their shareholders. Priority number one.

In many European countries, the legal responsibility of the directors of a company is subtly different. Some have a legal requirement to always act in their country's interest or for the better development of society and this is usually held up by the right as the sort of wishy washy utopia that is not grounded in reality and is causing Europe to implode as American capital goes further east.

Many many years ago I attended a lecture given by the chief executive of Porsche (can't remember his name) but he gave a really good analogy for all this. He said a business has three primary functions:
1) Return a profit to shareholders
2) Produce a product or service for the benefit of its customers
3) Provide a livelihood for its employees.

These he likened to eating, drinking and breathing. You can survive a matter of minutes without breathing, days without drinking and weeks without eating. But if you neglect any one of the three for long enough, at the end you will be just as dead.

He didn't actually assign each analogy to each business function. I think we were supposed to decide for ourselves which most closely pertained to which.

Made me think.

I concluded that the relative importance of each one changes with time. There are times when concentrating on your work force will be as important as breathing and other times where you can put them on the long finger while you deal with something more pressing. But at the end of the day, you have to look after all three.

Taking the Aer Lingus case as an example, right now, priorities one and two will be shareholders and employees (for which there is some considerable overlap). Customers are on the long finger at the moment. But if O'Leary starts his threatened price war, well then the customers will have to be looked after as a matter of urgency.

democrates

Colonel Sanders wrote:

any person i know who works in the civil service says they come and go to the office as they please yet are still paid for a full week. You have to look for work as none is given to you. The level of staffing and the level of wages coupled with a severly underfunded (after McCreevy raided the pension fund to defer public sector borrowing in his election budget) DB pension scheme is inflating a bubble that cannot burst if a recession comes. Who'll have to continue to pay for this then? You and me, the ordinary PAYE workers through increased direct and indirect taxes. We already saw this in the first 'stealth tax' budget after the last election.

ballooba wrote:

And by the way, I have worked in the public sector. It bored me to tears, I was too young to try and change things (had no power what so ever). It also disgusted me.

I've heard some similar anecdotes, I can add that I've heard very different stories too though. It seems that in recent times either ministers have been duped by senior civil-servants into giving the go-ahead for unnecessary new hires but more likely they have been bulking up numbers so departments can be decentralised even if many public servants stay in their communities in dublin.

A&E is not to be solved by throwing more money at the problem we're told in no uncertain terms, but there's no end of our tax to be spent on measures to achieve decentralisation.

It's fair to note that public servants also pay income tax and stealth taxes, but I get your points, the net effect of the imbalance of mis-management of the public service versus tough conditions in the labour market is a transfer of wealth from private sector workers to those in the public sector. Not as extreme as the transfer to shareholders but unwelcome nonetheless.

Interesting contrib there mad finn. Co-operatives and charities don't have to serve seperate shareholders, but there is still a balancing act between worker remuneration and satisfying customers, one that isn't always gotten right. Another FT article a few years back looked at pay for CEO's of charities, and why the secrecy. The answer was that 'people aren't ready to hear the numbers necessary to retain an effective ceo in the marketplace today'. Transparency has since become a higher priority.

For the foreseeable future there's no ignoring the marketplace or dismissing competition. All I can do with my business is play fairly when I can, I serve non-profits and small business and severely undercut the market. I can only do so due to over ten years of thrifty living and was lucky enough to buy my home in 1992. I fully appreciate that the property boom leaves up and comers with one option - make as much and be as thrifty as you can if you want a home for your family, and even then probably say goodbye to the community you grew up in. Not since the famine has their been such a permanent displacement of communities, only my father and one brother out of five sibs lives near now. Scandalous.

Since the globalisation of capital in the absence of matching democracy is set to continue driving labour competition regardless of the personal struggle, and economic growth regardless of the environmental damage, one thing people can and should demand from government is an end to waste in our public service. Sadly I think the encumbents are more interested in doing deals than doing the right thing. If the public service have too much electoral power, increasing their numbers unnecessarily is the governments doing. If partnership deals and benchmarking allowed more waste, again, this government did the deals. Next!