O'Leary on RTE this morning , priceless!

The Corinthian

ntlbell wrote: »

It did? Really? by suggesting that that one of Irelands most succesful buisness man might have some better ideas on how to get the best from a work force? tabloid headlines indeed.

Reducing such a suggestion to a snappy cliché does do that I'm afraid, and you did do that.

In my earlier example, do you think if O'Learly hired 8 people to manage IT for 29 people he would allow those 8 people to outsurce their own jobs spend in some cases hundreds of thousands while they sat around playing online games? do you think it would be difficult to monitor the work of those IT "specialists" ?

I'm not denying that real (as opposed to the laughable lip-service in the PS) benchmarking and targets would not make a difference, however I would not get carried away with Ryanair's 'efficency' either, as they've been known to play it up for marketing reasons. A case in point is in IT - their Web site, which they famously touted in the past as having paid a couple of students a couple of grand to put together. This is true, the Web site was put up by a couple of students a couple of grand - what they tend to not mention is that they paid upwards of a million Punt for the e-commerce functionality on said site.

you're in the mobile/sms/ industry right? or used to be, would that happen under your watch? no? why?

Depends where; in most companies such individuals would get fired. In Newbury, if they knew how to do Powerpoint presentations, they'd probably get promoted.

why can't politicians work on a commision/sales model?

They do. Just not for money, but votes. See where that got us?

do you think o'learly would allow people to decide their own increases?

Depending upon the labour market, he has to upon occasion. Some jobs can dictate their own salaries.

allow them to claim exspenses they had no proof of?

A lot of private sector expense auditing is not exactly at a high standard.

allow a politican in kildare explain a days petrol/night in a hotel/breakfast/lunch dinner because he came all the way from kildare to do a days work?

Well, really the issue there is that such a politician should be fired by his employers - the electorate. Unfortunately, we too easily lose interest. Tribunals are a great device for looking like you're doing something about the problem until the hoi polloi are distracted by something shiny.

you can apply his ethics in ALMOST all sectors of the PS, there might be SOME sections you have to tinker with it, but it will work.

Not really. Remember profit motivation is not what government is supposed to be about - very few areas in the PS actually bring in revenue at all. As I said, that's not to say that some private sector fiscal rectitude should not be introduced - it should - but it does have it's limits.

Darragh29

Sand wrote: »

McCreevy was forced out of government by Bertie because McCreevys unwillingness to cut loose the spending in the manner Bertie and the others in cabinet wanted. Cowen was dropped in as a loyal FF tribalist and the spending began jumping massively with no consideration for sustainability.

Fianna fail is a cult. The sooner people realise that we are dealing with the likes of The Church of Scientology, then the quicker will come our liberation...

EnigmasWhisper

bridgitt wrote: »

He was brilliant. If only we had someone with an ounce of his common sense in charge. Its great to think as a country we can produce people like him, who has grown the worlds largest airline from humble beginnings , and who pays his taxes in Ireland.

Oh right, so thats the same guy who did a U turn on the Lisbon treaty so as to get a free ride into Air Lingus and cheaper labour in the future ? I might add 90% of his staff are Eastern European

Head The Wall

The Corinthian wrote: »

Remember profit motivation is not what government is supposed to be about - very few areas in the PS actually bring in revenue at all. As I said, that's not to say that some private sector fiscal rectitude should not be introduced - it should - but it does have it's limits.

The governmennt doesn't have to turn a profit but it should spend as wisely as possible and we know it doesn't do that

The Corinthian

Head The Wall wrote: »

The governmennt doesn't have to turn a profit but it should spend as wisely as possible and we know it doesn't do that

True, but that is not the same thing as profit maximization, which is the basic premise of an enterprise's motivation in Capitalist microeconomics.

I am not suggesting that O'Leary or his peers have nothing to contribute or that the PS should not adopt a large swathe of private sector practices, only that these cannot simply be applied to the PS, as the model is always going to be different, down to the basic purpose of the PS and that relying simply upon a work ethic ignores the fact that life is a little bit more complex.

Dr Galen

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

At the moment, yes.
But, to the best of my understanding, the Dutch healthcare model is a target driven/sales driven service, which is part of what makes it the most cost-efficient in Europe, and apparently the 2nd best.

not really tbh. Yes there are targets etc involved, but in the way your suggesting. Simply put, the government doesn't really provide healthcare services to the population, it purchases them on behalf of the population from the private sector.

It gets more complicated when you factor in the different insurance policies involved, the profit and not for profit health care providers etc etc.

Diarmuid

EnigmasWhisper wrote: »

Oh right, so thats the same guy who did a U turn on the Lisbon treaty

No. He repeatedly refused to say which way he voted on the first treaty. That's not a u turn.

invincibleirish

O' Leary inspires the same kind of sentiment from his fans in middle Ireland that Charles Haughey did. To hell with his idiosyncracies and quirks, 'he gets the job done' and doesn't take ****. Like Brody Sweeney, Reynolds and others before them, being a successful businessmen does not make a good politician!, the last thing Irish politics needs is more cult of personality leaders.

silverharp

here is my summary view, the market works , gov. regulation doesnt work and any system where there is too much of a distance between the payment for services and the supply of services will tend to lead to sub optimal solutions namely excessive gov. , laws and low quality services.
The welfare state is generally sold on the basis having a safety net for the bottom 10% depending how you define it, after that people should be asking for themselves are they getting a good deal? Are people to be treated as so irresponsible that they cant be trusted to fund their own education and health needs for example? wouldnt we have better services if we had more control over the services we consume?

97i9y3941

to give o leary his due,im sure he would turn around the country and probably do a thatcher and break the unions,and dont say he would make the country worse off,there was already a poverty trap in ireland during the so called "boom"

craichoe

Dannyboy83 wrote: »

At the moment, yes.
But, to the best of my understanding, the Dutch healthcare model is a target driven/sales driven service, which is part of what makes it the most cost-efficient in Europe, and apparently the 2nd best.

Damn more expensive than Ireland though, my premium for basic health insurance is 1150 euros for the year and thats the mandatory legal minimum when working and its pretty much the same price across the board for 'zorgverzekering'

Seems to be quite good though when you need to use it.

Diarmuid

craichoe wrote: »

Damn more expensive than Ireland though, my premium for basic health insurance is 1150 euros for the year and thats the mandatory legal minimum when working and its pretty much the same price across the board for 'zorgverzekering'

Seems to be quite good though when you need to use it.

Well in Ireland if you are single, 35 years old, earning €40k you will pay:
VHI - €795
Health insurance - €1600

You can decide if you are getting value for money or not.

glynn888

just let him loose in any hospital . all you need is a pair of eyes to see all the overpaid wasters swanning around doing nothing and geting away with it.
how can we justify paying people 1000 euros a week to push trolleys around.

joa00001

I have been saying this to all the people I have spoke to that Michael O'Leary type is needed! The biggest mistake in my opinion is the minimum wage. We use to be brought up that if you worked hard you got paid well and if you didn't you didn't! Now (no offence intended !) if you stand on the road with a stop/go sign your employer has been told to pay you the minimum of over €17 per hour (general operative CIF). These crazy rates have meant that people think they have more money in their pay packet when really everything goes up in price to pay for peoples employment and they are worse off at the end! Social Welfare is then increased so dependants can afford to live with increased prices. Businesses leave Ireland because labour is so expensive and then the government increase our VAT so that we travel over the border for cheaper prices instead of having the north come to us !
The Government/public service creates a lot of buracrasy for small companies to discourage them and too many rules to make them efficent. The waste in the civil service can be seen by the amount of paper work small firms have to do and I think that this is only to create work for civil services ie; CSO, NERA, CIF, AUDITS, ect.

By the way I was so annoyed at the goverment I sent them an email from their site outlining my points making clear I would never vote for them again and got an email back- thanking me for my continued support and becoming a supporter of their party!!!! They never even read it!!!

irish_bob

joa00001 wrote: »

I have been saying this to all the people I have spoke to that Michael O'Leary type is needed! The biggest mistake in my opinion is the minimum wage. We use to be brought up that if you worked hard you got paid well and if you didn't you didn't! Now (no offence intended !) if you stand on the road with a stop/go sign your employer has been told to pay you the minimum of over €17 per hour (general operative CIF). These crazy rates have meant that people think they have more money in their pay packet when really everything goes up in price to pay for peoples employment and they are worse off at the end! Social Welfare is then increased so dependants can afford to live with increased prices. Businesses leave Ireland because labour is so expensive and then the government increase our VAT so that we travel over the border for cheaper prices instead of having the north come to us !
The Government/public service creates a lot of buracrasy for small companies to discourage them and too many rules to make them efficent. The waste in the civil service can be seen by the amount of paper work small firms have to do and I think that this is only to create work for civil services ie; CSO, NERA, CIF, AUDITS, ect.

By the way I was so annoyed at the goverment I sent them an email from their site outlining my points making clear I would never vote for them again and got an email back- thanking me for my continued support and becoming a supporter of their party!!!! They never even read it!!!

the goverment and the public service do not create beauracracy for the purpose of discouraging small business , they create beauracracy in order to maximise employment in the public service , the result is the same though , it hinders business

westtip

+1 spot on
The issue is not benchmarking an inefficiently designed system or cutting pay - its cutting back the entire system and starting from scratch.

We have a political and public administration system established in the 19th century - it needs to be totally overhauled to suit a modern society

jimmmy

They would set up another quango to look in to that. Millions of euro later, nothing would change. They commissioned the McCarthy report, but did not act on it.

Keano

I've certain respect for O'Leary and he would no doubt be a good advisor on certain issues but please Michael, stop giving out about levies, your airline will charge us to have a window seat next.

jimmmy

Keano A Legend wrote: »

I've certain respect for O'Leary and he would no doubt be a good advisor on certain issues but please Michael, stop giving out about levies, your airline will charge us to have a window seat next.

His flights are still cheap - at the moment I saw advertised he is selling a million seats for a tenner each. If he charges for a window seat , then sit by the aisle. Thank God for O'Leary + Ryanair. If it were not for him then who knowns what the Air Lingus would be charging now. They charged a few hunded quid 30 years ago just to fly to England. Their ( Air Lingus ) attitude then , as they were highly unionised + in a monopoly situation, remind me of the public service now.

P. Breathnach

jimmmy wrote: »

His flights are still cheap - at the moment I saw advertised he is selling a million seats for a tenner each. If he charges for a window seat , then sit by the aisle. Thank God for O'Leary + Ryanair. If it were not for him then who knowns what the Air Lingus would be charging now. They charged a few hunded quid 30 years ago just to fly to England. Their ( Air Lingus ) attitude then , as they were highly unionised + in a monopoly situation, remind me of the public service now.

It wasn't Ryanair that broke the Aer Lingus/BA cartel. It was the EU: public servants serving the public.

jimmmy

Since when did the EU / public servants set up an airline ? Can you imagine if they did how efficient they would be / how long they would last ? Maybe the bearded ones should invest some of their money in an airline / set up an airline. It could provide their members with a source of strike income / pension / whatever. As Michael O'Leary said, if the public servants want to serve the public, let them work 40 hours a week like everyone else, instead of 32 etc. He would cut a lot more than the 1.3 or 4 billion from govt expenditure, as he explained.

P. Breathnach

jimmmy wrote: »

Since when did the EU / public servants set up an airline ? ...

They facilitated private enterprise. Isn't that the sort of thing you want?

jimmmy

P. Breathnach wrote: »

They facilitated private enterprise.

You mean they stopped blocking it. And it took a third of a million of them to do this, at what cost ? No, my friend, the unions and the public service are not to thank for low cost airfares. Michael O'Leary has choice words for them.

P. Breathnach

jimmmy wrote: »

You mean they stopped blocking it. And it took a third of a million of them to do this, at what cost ? No, my friend, the unions and the public service are not to thank for low cost airfares. Michael O'Leary has choice words for them.

There's no satisfying you. O'Leary's version of history is not to be relied on.

jimmmy

P. Breathnach wrote: »

O'Leary's version of history is not to be relied on.

And what facts do you have to support that, when his version is the same as everyone else ?
Sure what would Michael O'Leary know about what happens and has happened in the Irish airline industry over the past 2 decades ? :rolleyes:

murphaph

P. Breathnach wrote: »

It wasn't Ryanair that broke the Aer Lingus/BA cartel. It was the EU: public servants serving the public.

Lol, is this the same EU whose own audit team have refused to sign off on their accounts for years due to the fact they don't know where a good chunk of the (taxpayers') money goes? Pull the other one. The EU is another bloated waste of money that could achieve the same aims at a fraction of the cost if there weren't so many snouts in the trough.

The government in Ireland did their best to stifle Ryanair and that's well known. Aer Lingus was cast in the same mould as the public service. Aer Lingus has improved its service and its prices since being forced to compete with Ryanair. Just last week we saw the pilots (through their IALPA union) offer an additional 10% pay cut to try to keep the company afloat. No such offer would ever be made by the public sector unions, ever. The paycuts (to keep Ireland afloat) will be dragged kicking and screaming out of them.

Mcloke

ntlbell wrote: »

I used to be one of them (not a PS ) the stories I could tell you about the amount of wastage here is pretty frightening.

Just a small example there was 8 "IT specialists" (ps workers) managing two sites one site had 25 ps workers the other office had 4.

the "specialists" were split evenly across both sites, so on one site you had the same amount of "IT specialists" as workers.

The job we were doing was not overly technical but they outsourced the job to us instead of doing it themselves.

So every now and then I would have a question for one of them so I had to go and disturb their gaming session (which was hosted on a dedicated eircom leased line that they got installed for their own personal useage) where they would shurg their shoulders "i dunno? is that not why you're here?"

This was only the start of my introduction to what the PS was really like

scary.

Which is why all the Public Sector workers I know want reform....there is rot in the Public Sector but there are hard workers and the hard workers have to work with muppets like that everyday. The government needs to look at reform but they refuse to as it is a hard job and to be honest I believe they would make a complete mess of it and get rid of the good people and keep the bad (esp if they are FF voters :rolleyes:).

Nobody (bar the people themselves) would agree that your scenario is ok but we should not tar every public sector worker with the same brush.

P. Breathnach

jimmmy wrote: »

And what facts do you have to support that, when his version is the same as everyone else ?
Sure what would Michael O'Leary know about what happens and has happened in the Irish airline industry over the past 2 decades ? :rolleyes:

What O'Leary knows and what he says are not necessarily the same thing. He interprets the past so as best to suit his present wishes.

Ryanair did not break the cartel on the Dublin-London route.

jimmmy

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Ryanair did not break the cartel on the Dublin-London route.

It certainly was not the highly unionised Aer Lingus, which was joined at the hip with the government. Nor was it the public sector which took the initiative, took the risk + worked bl**dy hard, as MOL said.

Diarmuid

P. Breathnach wrote: »

It wasn't Ryanair that broke the Aer Lingus/BA cartel. It was the EU: public servants serving the public.

:pac: Your obsession with not giving O'Leary an inch of credit has reached ridiculous proportions.