If we had German levels of state efficiency...

ArmaniJeanss

ghost_ie wrote: »

Judges' salaries and those of higher civil servants should also be reduced to €50,000pa.

Once that's done by all means look at reducing the pay of ordinary public sector workers.

Serious?

If we reduce the very highest civil servant to €50K then what sort of money do you reckon the top guard and the top doctor and the 20-year teacher should be on?

And the junior doctor and the newly qualified guard? Somewhere around the €12K mark? €10K for the teacher?

Or maybe you just want the people at the top to earn less than the people below them?

Hasschu

The political systems and culture differ markedly. The German electorate demand efficiency and the politicians are there to govern the country as a whole. In Ireland the electorate want jobs for the girls and the boys in return for supporting the party and the politicians are there to govern on behalf of the campaign contributers. Irish civil servants are no better or worse than their German counterparts. As to pay rates the Irish gov't reward their supporters and contributors. What have you done for Ireland's natural governing party lately. Surely you are not thinking of punishing the gov't at the polls. Better to become a supporter and a contributer tis the Irish way.

kevteljeur

ghost_ie wrote: »

Before you start sacking nurses, doctors, cleaners, health care assistants, teachers etc., let's start with the top dogs.

Reduce the number of TD's to 100 (if not less). Then reduce their salaries to €50,000pa. Ministers would be paid €60,000. The post of Junior Minister should be abolished. No TD shouldl be allowed to collect a ministerial pension while drawing a TD's salary. No retired Minister should draw both a ministerial and a TD's pension. All expenses to be vouched.

Having done that, we move on to quangos - get rid of the lot.

Also get rid of the Board of the HSE. We have a Minister for Health - no need to pay a group of people to do the job she's meant to do.

Judges' salaries and those of higher civil servants should also be reduced to €50,000pa.

Once that's done by all means look at reducing the pay of ordinary public sector workers.

And before you say "We can't do that - if we reduce their pay like that no-one will want to be a TD. If we pay peanuts we get monkeys" let me point out that we pay politicians exorbitant salaries and would have been better off if we'd had monkeys governing us

The general principle is a good one.

ArmaniJeanss wrote: »

Serious?

If we reduce the very highest civil servant to €50K then what sort of money do you reckon the top guard and the top doctor and the 20-year teacher should be on?

And the junior doctor and the newly qualified guard? Somewhere around the €12K mark? €10K for the teacher?

Or maybe you just want the people at the top to earn less than the people below them?

Personally, I think the specifics might have been a bit extreme, but the general principle of having less people, paying them less, and having them work harder is what's important. People doing more for less. This is how Ireland should see itself in relation to the rest of Europe in terms of competitiveness, and I believe a big problem with Ireland's image in the larger, wealthier European states has been a clear pride in 'doing less for more'; over-priced inefficiency, in other words.

And for TDs and Ministers; well, if they are doing the job because it is well-paid, then it is the wrong reason. That's not to say it shouldn't have a decent wage attached, but it shouldn't be up there with the highest paid state salaries in the world.

Something that is generally true is that people in Ireland (and I believe that this is fuelled by Unions here to a great degree) have a strong sense of entitlement. We see laughable posts here about how the EU or Germany should bail us out of our economic problems, but it's based on a feeling that we should be getting more from everyone else, because we deserve it. We're a small and economically weak country, and at all levels that needs to be reflected, including members of the public service being paid at, and employed in numbers, comparable to other European states operating in similar conditions.

You'll see no union official ever explain how these high numbers of wages and employment should be financed, because there isn't a good answer for it. This post isn't a dig at Public Service employees, by the way, there are plenty of hard-working, efficient members of the service. But there are too many, and we'll all have to take a cut, public or private.


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Boskowski

#15 wrote: »

That depends on what you count as work. Do you just include instruction time? Or preparation time? Are you referring to primary or secondary? Or both?

A 25% pay cut would be fair, if the cost of living falls by about 30% or 40%.

May I ask what job you have?

I am wondering how qualified you are to be able to make such definitive claims about the salaries of other workers.
Paying tax does not make you qualified.

You're asking fair enough questions.

I'm not really qualified at all to comment. You may ask. I'm a software engineer, a tax payer. That's all. As qualified as most people commenting here on this. What's your job?

I'm making those claims on the grounds of common sense. No one straight out of college is worth just under 40 grand. Even if they were, it still wouldn't be right to pay them that. Certainly no teacher is. While teaching certainly is a responsible and important job I fail to see how it should be kept on a plateau. They're teachers, no more no less.

I am also making these claims on the grounds of Ireland being a small country thinking it can afford to pay every single one in health and education (and other professions) way over the European average. That just doesn't make sense. We have no economical ,industrial or other fiscal strongholds to back up such behavior. We should be actually more prudent than everyone else, but yet we're doing the exact opposite.

Thirdly I am making these claims on the grounds of Ireland simply being unable to afford such levels of pay in the public sector. Not on grounds of being a small country or being prudent or anything. On the grounds of this being a matter of fact. Ireland has to borrow moneys in the region of almost the entire public sector wage bill. Assuming that my first two points were invalid it still wouldn't make this one go away.

You are saying a pay cut would only be fair if the costs of living would fall substantially below the pay cut effectively giving a sizable pay rise? So you are saying that teachers aren't paid enough and really they should be given even more? I don't have to explain to you what I think of that.

Lastly, what's fair? I think teachers are paid more than fairly. I think teachers have a great job with those long holidays and they're getting very handsomely paid for it. All the teachers I know agree with me on this. If I had to count similar holidays into my job it would have to be worth 10-15 grand easily. I'm not saying teachers have an easy job, but who does? Fact is that teachers seem to have a disproportionately excellent deal between job demands, pay, holidays and other benefits like pension etc. The education sector is contributing also disproportionately to the states budget deficit. Now we just have to put a) and b) together.

I would like to add that we're singling out teachers in this thread. That's the one thing that isn't fair. We have similar professions that seem equally protected, not all of them necessarily in the public sector, that need to have a long hard look at themselves.

Boskowski

One word to the actual topic at hand. Comparing Irish and German public sector efficiency.

German efficiency is a bit of a stereotype and while there may be some truth in it, 'efficiency' is certainly not an attribute that the German people themselves would award to their public sector.

The numbers suggest a more efficient public service but there's a few a reasons why I think this is flawed.
Germany has much bigger urban centers. Germany has much, much better infrastructure. Germany has traditionally a lot of big industrial corporations employing huge numbers of people in the private sector. Ireland has no Siemens, Volkswagen, Bosch etc employing hundreds of thousands of people in the private sector. Ireland has 'mittelstaendische' and smaller businesses only, which Germany also has. Naturally that would twist the averages towards private sector employment in Germany.

But these things are only some aspects. I guess at the end of the day in Europe you will find very few countries that are more apart in terms of industrial and economical development than Germany and Ireland. You cannot really compare the two in so many ways.

imme

Another day another 'bash the public service' thread, quelle surprise?
Should I be surprised?

irish_bob

imme wrote: »

Another day another 'bash the public service' thread, quelle surprise?
Should I be surprised?

since were borrowing multiples of millions every week to fund it , no , you shouldnt be surpirsed to see posts complaining about its pig greedy appetite

#15

realcam wrote: »

You're asking fair enough questions.

I'm not really qualified at all to comment. You may ask. I'm a software engineer, a tax payer. That's all. As qualified as most people commenting here on this. What's your job?

I am a primary teacher. Sorry, I thought I had specified that earlier on this thread, but maybe it was in a different one. That was why I asked about you, as I thought I had done the same.

I'm making those claims on the grounds of common sense. No one straight out of college is worth just under 40 grand. Even if they were, it still wouldn't be right to pay them that. Certainly no teacher is. While teaching certainly is a responsible and important job I fail to see how it should be kept on a plateau. They're teachers, no more no less.

Ok.

I am also making these claims on the grounds of Ireland being a small country thinking it can afford to pay every single one in health and education (and other professions) way over the European average. That just doesn't make sense. We have no economical ,industrial or other fiscal strongholds to back up such behavior. We should be actually more prudent than everyone else, but yet we're doing the exact opposite.

Thirdly I am making these claims on the grounds of Ireland simply being unable to afford such levels of pay in the public sector. Not on grounds of being a small country or being prudent or anything. On the grounds of this being a matter of fact. Ireland has to borrow moneys in the region of almost the entire public sector wage bill. Assuming that my first two points were invalid it still wouldn't make this one go away.

I agree with this.

You are saying a pay cut would only be fair if the costs of living would fall substantially below the pay cut effectively giving a sizable pay rise? So you are saying that teachers aren't paid enough and really they should be given even more? I don't have to explain to you what I think of that.

Ok fair enough, I exaggerated that to make a point.
My point is that wages are higher here because the cost of living is higher here. Its annoying when people won't acknowledge that. The OP has repeatedly refused to acknowledge that in other threads.

I would be much happier to earn a German teachers salary if the cost of living was the same as in Germany.
I am actually thinking of emigrating there in the next few years. I know a few teachers in Germany and their lifestyle is much better than mine here, even with less wages (because of the cost of living, transport etc etc). I am learning German at the moment.

Lastly, what's fair? I think teachers are paid more than fairly. I think teachers have a great job with those long holidays and they're getting very handsomely paid for it. All the teachers I know agree with me on this. If I had to count similar holidays into my job it would have to be worth 10-15 grand easily. I'm not saying teachers have an easy job, but who does? Fact is that teachers seem to have a disproportionately excellent deal between job demands, pay, holidays and other benefits like pension etc. The education sector is contributing also disproportionately to the states budget deficit. Now we just have to put a) and b) together.

I think a pay cut would be fair. I don't disagree there.
But to say that teachers work 9-3 is not a true statement. I am not claiming it is the hardest job in the world, but it is annoying when people make assumptions without knowing the other work that goes into it.

Pay can be cut. Pension benefits can be changed. But I am not sure about the holidays, I think that is something that should be changed on educational grounds rather than on economic grounds. Some people seem to think that teachers should have less holidays, ''just because''.
If there is an educational argument for it, they should make it, but there does not seem to be an economic one.

As for the proportion of the budget, I don't know enough about it to comment.

I would like to add that we're singling out teachers in this thread. That's the one thing that isn't fair. We have similar professions that seem equally protected, not all of them necessarily in the public sector, that need to have a long hard look at themselves.

Fair point.

#15

irish_bob wrote: »

since were borrowing multiples of millions every week to fund it , no , you shouldnt be surpirsed to see posts complaining about its pig greedy appetite

Ok, why not offer up some ideas as to what can be done to cut costs?

Does the OP have anything to add to this thread, rather than just thanking every post that is negative about the public sector?

jimmmy

gurramok wrote: »

Well, Irish male primary school teachers earn €64k average and female teachers €56k average.
http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0416/teachers.html

Given finishing salaries - because of age , promotion etc - are higher than average salaries, we can only speculate ( in the absense of satatisical info ) what teachers pensions are, but they are obviously pretty high compared to private sector pensions + pensions overseas. I am sure they will be cut in the budget too.

jimmmy

#15 wrote: »

Does the OP have anything to add to this thread, rather than just thanking every post that is negative about the public sector?

I have thanked a few posts which had positive suggestions on how to improve the value for money we are all getting for public expenditure.
Given our govt borrowing, I think it fair to say everyone knows something has to be done about govt expenditure, and a large part of govt expenditure goes on the public sector. Many people in the country are not happy about the quality of our public services eg healthcare, education etc, and we have the right to look at the level of public service pay + pensions in other Eurozone countries - much less than here -, staff numbers employed there and general efficiency etc. I had already written " If / when public sector numbers are reduced, obviously other things will have to be looked at...eg German teachers get only 6 weeks summer holidays,...our hse staff take 19 sickies a year etc. Its time our taxpayers got efficiency + value for money "

imme

irish_bob wrote: »

since were borrowing multiples of millions every week to fund it , no , you shouldnt be surpirsed to see posts complaining about its pig greedy appetite

1) do you trust the same government that gave you Benchmarking to 'reform' the public service?

2) do you know the German public service and its levels of efficiency, are we comparing like with like, what do you know of the German public service.

3) do you think the public service should just be slashed wholesale, or 'reformed'?

jimmmy

Given our public service is the "highest paid" on "the planet" ( as confirmed by Eddie Hobbs on RTE last week ) , I think our public service should as part of being 'reformed' it should be "slashed wholesale":D
( as opposed to slashed retail , or pay levels even increased in some parts, as some union activists advocate )

Not just the pay should be looked at but numbers employed in certain parts eg administration will need to be addressed, as well as factors such the levels of holidays, pensions, sickies etc.

The taxpayer deserves an efficient government + public services.

ardmacha

Given our public service is the "highest paid" on "the planet" ( as confirmed by Eddie Hobbs on RTE last week

How does Eddie Hobbs know? Are you really Eddie Hobbs?

jimmmy

ardmacha wrote: »

How does Eddie Hobbs know?

You would need to ask him that, but I would assume that like others he has compared Irish levels of public sector pay with levels in other countries.

ardmacha wrote: »

Are you really Eddie Hobbs?

No.
N.B. There is an interesting thread of that aspect of p.s. pay if you want to go off on that tangent. Is the Irish Public Service the highest paid in the world ? (1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page)

P. Breathnach

ardmacha wrote: »

How does Eddie Hobbs know? Are you really Eddie Hobbs?

jimmmy doesn't do research. He picks up random facts and factoids and uses them repeatedly as authority.

jimmmy

P. Breathnach wrote: »

jimmmy doesn't do research. He picks up random facts and factoids and uses them repeatedly as authority.

I do actually do reasearch, P. Breatnach. Would you please stop attacking me personally ? It gets a bit tiresome. Do you attack Eddie Hobbs too ? If you have found some country in the world which has higher public service pay ( it should not be hard for you to find if there is one, given most countries have statistics offices, how easy it is to do research on the internet,etc ) perhaps you could correct those whom you disagree with ?

NB I do not receive public service pay or a public service pension, so I have no vested interest in this. My only interest is as a taxpayer / citizen.

Tipp Man

realcam wrote: »

You are saying a pay cut would only be fair if the costs of living would fall substantially below the pay cut effectively giving a sizable pay rise? So you are saying that teachers aren't paid enough and really they should be given even more? I don't have to explain to you what I think of that.

Lastly, what's fair? I think teachers are paid more than fairly. I think teachers have a great job with those long holidays and they're getting very handsomely paid for it. All the teachers I know agree with me on this. If I had to count similar holidays into my job it would have to be worth 10-15 grand easily. I'm not saying teachers have an easy job, but who does? Fact is that teachers seem to have a disproportionately excellent deal between job demands, pay, holidays and other benefits like pension etc. The education sector is contributing also disproportionately to the states budget deficit. Now we just have to put a) and b) together.

I would like to add that we're singling out teachers in this thread. That's the one thing that isn't fair. We have similar professions that seem equally protected, not all of them necessarily in the public sector, that need to have a long hard look at themselves.

Top post this

Tipp Man

Tipp Man wrote: »

Well 1 thing that is blindingly obvious from the above graph is that in the 10 years to 07 they have cut public servants by what 650k or 12.5%. And it would appear that they stratigically decided to lower the number of full time positions as it is a nice steady decline. What way has the graph gone for Ireland in those 10 years? I think that highlights why Germany will pull out of recesion about 3 years before we will

realcam wrote: »

One word to the actual topic at hand. Comparing Irish and German public sector efficiency.

German efficiency is a bit of a stereotype and while there may be some truth in it, 'efficiency' is certainly not an attribute that the German people themselves would award to their public sector.

The numbers suggest a more efficient public service but there's a few a reasons why I think this is flawed.
Germany has much bigger urban centers. Germany has much, much better infrastructure. Germany has traditionally a lot of big industrial corporations employing huge numbers of people in the private sector. Ireland has no Siemens, Volkswagen, Bosch etc employing hundreds of thousands of people in the private sector. Ireland has 'mittelstaendische' and smaller businesses only, which Germany also has. Naturally that would twist the averages towards private sector employment in Germany.

But these things are only some aspects. I guess at the end of the day in Europe you will find very few countries that are more apart in terms of industrial and economical development than Germany and Ireland. You cannot really compare the two in so many ways.

i agree with a lot of what you say but if you refer to the first page of this thread and look at the graph you will see that Germany has reduced its full time PS workers by 12.5% over 10 years, so it is making a conscious effort to control and manage its PS. we have done the exact opposite by letting both the number of PS workers and their wages get out of control. i don't see why we can't aim to have a similar public service, in terms of pay but especially in terms of numbers (as a %age of workforce or population). ok they might have better structures in place but surely we have to aim for similar levels.

also Germany has a decent sized army which must be adding to their PS number.

cyclopath2001

jimmmy wrote: »

I do actually do reasearch

In the Irish Independent.

ardmacha

The education sector is contributing also disproportionately to the states budget deficit.

Define disportionate? This country has a low expenditure per student, which hasn't grown in a disportionate way.

Because something is big doesn't mean that it is disportionate. Aggregate education spending may be greater than ministers expenses, but that doesn't mean that it is disportionate or that Minister's expenses are not.

NewDubliner

Tipp Man wrote: »

also Germany has a decent sized army which must be adding to their PS number.

jimmmy, despite his pain-staking research listening to the day-time radio chat shows and reading disreputable newspapers has been unable to provide a breakdown of how the German PS was counted. Can you help?

irish_bob

#15 wrote: »

Ok, why not offer up some ideas as to what can be done to cut costs?

Does the OP have anything to add to this thread, rather than just thanking every post that is negative about the public sector?

20% cut in social wellfare including oap over three years , 10% cut in lower grade public servant pay over three years , 20% cut in teacher pay over three years , same for nurses , guards , 35% cut for judges , consultants , politicians , heads of hse , aer rianta , esb , bord gais , cie , reduction in vat , deconstruct the hse and privatise the whole thing , reduce minimum wage to 6 euro per hour , aim to let go at least fifty thousand state sector workers in the next three years , this will mainly involve getting rid if numerous quangos although much reform is need at local authority level too , dublin corporation has something like four times the level of managment than that of greater manchester

Hasschu

Ireland is in a very precarious position. The best and most obvious evidence of this is the deflation rate of 6.5% this year. We are on the cusp of a downward spiral that could end in chaos. Mobs on the street, the Dail under siege, highly unstable political situation such as gov'ts lasting three weeks and five or six changes within six months. Our gov't still think it is 2006 and the recovery will be our salvation as in time heals all wounds boys. To argue about minor details at this stage is not productive. We will all take a hit, of course some of us will have salable skills and will emigrate to escape the misery that Ireland is headed for. When a gov't and a people become detached from reality that is when it explodes in their faces. At this point we have a responsibility as citizens to let our TDs' know that we want an election immediately. We cannot stand idly by while the gov't incurs more debt daily and with NAMA ensures that we the taxpayers are on the hook for billions for a decade or more. Get off scapegoating the Public Service and the teachers our problems are much bigger than them. Only a change of gov't will suffice to stop the rot, clean out the stables and stop the down ward drift.

jimmmy

Hasschu wrote: »

Ireland is in a very precarious position. The best and most obvious evidence of this is the deflation rate of 6.5% this year.

Indeed. And yet some public service unions - not to mention AID - are looking for (or implementing in the case of AIB ? ) a pay increase ?

Hasschu wrote: »

We cannot stand idly by while the gov't incurs more debt daily

True

Hasschu wrote: »

Get off scapegoating the Public Service and the teachers our problems are much bigger than them.

But how can we afford to continue paying the highest paid public service "on the planet" ( as Eddie Hobbs said on RTE ) ? And is it true public sector pensions here are bigger than the actual annual industrial wage in most western countries ?

parsi

Ah Eddie Hobbs - the bluffer hero of jimmmy .

I read in the paper today that Eddie received over 60,000 for his stint on teh board of that most useful organisation - the NCA.

Eddie of course is blowing these trumpets to possibly distract attention from his investment business which may or may not be doing all that well.