Public service pay cut?

AndrewJRenko

purifol0 wrote: »

Yeah its a great argument to disallow employees of the govt to vote on the govt! Bit of a conflict of interest, no?


""

We'd also have to disallow employees of all the companies that benefit from outsourcing to avoid any conflict. Will there be anyone left to vote?

Burkie1203

raze_them_all_ wrote: »

If public sector is so amazing why doesn't everyone join?? Could it be that the amazing salaries aren't as good when private sector is booming but only look good when things go tits up in the private sector??

This.

My wife joined Civil Service 4 years ago at CO level. 25k/year. Recently promoted to EO.

She was working in private sector but it was constant phone calls out of hours etc. 20 hours commute a week.

She took a near 15k pay cut.

The no commute in the last 12 month on top of the regular steady hours have had a huge benefit on quality of life and family time. We are lucky in that we bought our house in 2002 so could prioritise quality of life and family time over money especially on the back of my promotions since 2010.

Dav010

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

In the last general election, and every general election before that.

No Renko, we didn’t get to vote on that. This is going to be another inane weighty in law-type discussion I see, you state a fact then you go on to explain why you were wrong (obesity and lack of funds in your previous effort).

In relation to analogy/anecdote, I had assumed you made it up to compare the workings in public/private sector, using it as an anecdote to make the point you were trying to make about private hospitals, is quite something if the in law couldn’t afford the treatment or procedure would be safer in a general hospital due to health issues with the patient.

Was there a question on the ballot paper asking if we were voting for reform of the PS, or, was there a party who ran in any general election whose manifesto was solely based on reform of public services? Not that I’m aware of.

MikeOxsgreen wrote: »

Imagine how worse it would be.

Hard to imagine it being any worse than that, I suspects that article came as a shock to you, I was astonished, if a private company had nearly 800 breaches in one year, a lot of people would be fired.

AndrewJRenko

Dav010 wrote: »

No Renko, we didn’t get to vote on that. This is going to be another inane weighty in law-type discussion I see, you state a fact then you go on to explain why you were wrong (obesity and lack of funds in your previous effort).

In relation to analogy/anecdote, I had assumed you made it up to compare the workings in public/private sector, using it as an anecdote to make the point you were trying to make about private hospitals, is quite something if the in law couldn’t afford the treatment or procedure would be safer in a general hospital due to health issues with the patient.

My in-law was safer in a public hospital because private hospitals don't have the full range of services for dealing with complex cases.
Cherry picking.

Dav010 wrote: »

Was there a question on the ballot paper asking if we were voting for reform of the PS, or, was there a party who ran in any general election whose manifesto was solely based on reform of public services? Not that I’m aware of.

Public sector reform is a fairly standard part of any election manifesto for any party. So yes, you DID get to vote on that. It certainly wasn't a hot issue in the election. No manifesto is solely on any topic, regardless of how important it is.
As I pointed out above, most people don't seem to agree with you on these topics, so it doesn't complete with housing or healthcare, but it is part of the policy platform that you vote on.

If you don't think it gets enough attention, you're welcome to stand yourself with your unproven and unresearched proposals, and see how many people will vote for them.

Dav010 wrote: »

Hard to imagine it being any worse than that, I suspects that article came as a shock to you, I was astonished, if a private company had nearly 800 breaches in one year, a lot of people would be fired.

Who got fired from Twitter for the leak that cost them close to half a million euro in fines just before Christmas?

Dav010

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

My in-law was safer in a public hospital because private hospitals don't have the full range of services for dealing with complex cases.
Cherry picking.



Public sector reform is a fairly standard part of any election manifesto for any party. So yes, you DID get to vote on that. It certainly wasn't a hot issue in the election. No manifesto is solely on any topic, regardless of how important it is.
As I pointed out above, most people don't seem to agree with you on these topics, so it doesn't complete with housing or healthcare, but it is part of the policy platform that you vote on.

If you don't think it gets enough attention, you're welcome to stand yourself with your unproven and unresearched proposals, and see how many people will vote for them.


Who got fired from Twitter for the leak that cost them close to half a million euro in fines just before Christmas?

Which party ran on reform of public services that included being open to reduction in staff/wages?

Have to ask Twitter, did it happen 800 times in one year?

Again, if you have to pay for an item or service, is that considered cherry picking if you can’t pay for it or you are not suitable for the service offered? There must be a galactic amount of cherry picking in consumer services on a daily basis. I suspect Tesco only cater for people who can pay for their items and advise customers to go elsewhere for items they don’t/can’t provide.

AndrewJRenko

Dav010 wrote: »

Which party ran on reform of public services that included being open to reduction in staff/wages?

Did you not study all the manifestos to guide your vote? Eddie Hobbs and Renua were banging that drum a bit.

Dav010 wrote: »

Have to ask Twitter, did it happen 800 times in one year?

Have to ask, did any of the 800 result in any kind of fine from the DPC, particularly one for close to half a million euro? That might give you some indication of the seriousness of the issue - and no one fired.

BTW, how many breaches did any of the banks or telecoms or utilities have last year?

Dav010 wrote: »

Again, if you have to pay for an item or service, is that considered cherry picking if you can’t pay for it or you are not suitable for the service offered? There must be a galactic amount of cherry picking in consumer services on a daily basis. I suspect Tesco only cater for people who can pay for their items and advise customers to go elsewhere for items they don’t/can’t provide.

If two people walked in to Tesco, and both asked for the same product, and Tesco responded that they'd only serve the tall one or the male one or the white one because that's what made things easy for them, would you be OK with that?
It's the same product - hip replacement.
Cherry picking.

Dav010

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Did you not study all the manifestos to guide your vote? Eddie Hobbs and Renua were banging that drum a bit.


Have to ask, did any of the 800 result in any kind of fine from the DPC, particularly one for close to half a million euro? That might give you some indication of the seriousness of the issue - and no one fired.

BTW, how many breaches did any of the banks or telecoms or utilities have last year?




If two people walked in to Tesco, and both asked for the same product, and Tesco responded that they'd only serve the tall one or the male one or the white one because that's what made things easy for them, would you be OK with that?
It's the same product - hip replacement.
Cherry picking.

Firstly, in case you didn’t know, refusing someone because they are male or white would be discrimination, so again, a very poor choice of analogy. If any of them can’t pay for the item, or, as in your obese in-laws case it might be unsafe to provide the service, it can be refused. Are you saying an operation should proceed even though it is high risk and the patient can’t pay?I’m not sure how much simpler that can be explained.

I’m really not sure the Eddie Hobbs/Renua is a good example of how the electorate could vote for change in the Public Service, do you think they ran enough candidates/were ever likely to gain enough seats to be able to influence such change? I just had a quick look through the 16/20 Renua manifesto summaries, can’t see anything substantial there in relation to PS reform.

I have no idea of fines, to be honest, until I checked I didn’t realise the Government services were so incompetent at data protection.

AndrewJRenko

Dav010 wrote: »

Firstly, in case you didn’t know, refusing someone because they are male or white would be discrimination, so again, a very poor choice of analogy. If any of them can’t pay for the item, or, as in your obese in-laws case it might be unsafe to provide the service, it can be refused. Are you saying an operation should proceed even though it is high risk and the patient can’t pay?I’m not sure how much simpler that can be explained.

You're absolutely right, it would be discrimination. In the in-laws case, they absolutely can pay for the item as they have full insurance cover, but the Beacon didn't want to know - they kicked them out to the door, like the multiple birth mums getting kicked out from Mt Carmel to Holles St.

I didn't say anything about whether the Beacon should do the operation or not. What I did say is that the Beacon are cherry-picking, as many private hospitals do as a matter of routine - to push the messier, more expensive cases back onto the public sector safety net.

Cherry picking.

Dav010 wrote: »

I’m really not sure the Eddie Hobbs/Renua is a good example of how the electorate could vote for change in the Public Service, do you think they ran enough candidates/were ever likely to gain enough seats to be able to influence such change? I just had a quick look through the 16/20 Renua manifesto summaries, can’t see anything substantial there in relation to PS reform.

You seem to be shifting the goalposts now, to 'ability to influence'. Like any political party, if they had got enough votes, and got enough seats, they'd be able to influence change.

Your problem is that most political parties aren't that interested in this issue, presumably because they not that most voters aren't that interested in the issue. It's not a process issue. It's just that you're a bit of an outlier.

Dav010 wrote: »

I have no idea of fines, to be honest, until I checked I didn’t realise the Government services were so incompetent at data protection.

The answer is zero - no public body has been fined, just Twitter - a private sector body.

And btw, you don't realise how incompetent private sector bodies are at data protection, because they don't publish their list of breaches if asked.

AndrewJRenko

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Look at comparable roles in Ireland - engineers, ICT roles, lawyers and you'll see that public sector pays significantly less than private.

I could earn 30k more in the private sector but I like the job security, lack of corporate bullsh1t, and, most important to me, actually helping people/society.
I've done my time lining the pockets of hedge fun managers and billionaires.

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I could earn 30k more in the private sector but I like the job security, lack of corporate bullsh1t, and, most important to me, actually helping people/society.
I've done my time lining the pockets of hedge fun managers and billionaires.

But if you think like them and say that their for profit business would do a better job than the public service, they will like you and make you richer.
Just look at America works like a dream over there, it's a great place to live with really affordable health care, utility companies who never raise prices during freezing weather, and one of the lowest populations in the world for their private prisons.

Pogue eile

Very interesting article in yesterdays Business Post by Aiden Corkery. Apparently Irelands share of the EU Covid Recovery Fund is to be slashed by over 80% in 2022 because our economy is doing so well compared to the EU 27 and our GDP is forecast to grow by 3.4% this year and 3.5% next year.

Would also be very interested to hear our resident economy experts views on this development or also his views on the Italian Prime Ministers plans on how to extract Italy from their economic crisis. PM Draghi has sought and got approval from Brussels to spend a total of €220bn as he quite correctly pointed out that the simplest way to ensure an economy recovers is to ensure that people actually have money to spend! The plan contains no plans to raise any personal taxes or any cuts to public service pay. For context Mr Draghi is the former President of the European Central Bank - but I am sure we have at least one poster here who is far more qualified in offering advice on how to run an economy :D

NovemberWren

beauf wrote: »

There's lots you can say about public sector projects outsourced to the private sector. Saving money isn't one of them.

Your answer to Purifol0 is quite disingenuous. Purifol0 said 'Instead we have an army of unsackable paper pushers, mostly pushing up the costs of running the damn services'. Purifol0 said nothing about saving money.

The social welfare could be outsourced to the private sector. And the employees could be paid very well and on an agreed steady basis, for some stated number of years.

The reason for your disingenuity may be:- that you require a never-ending as- Massive-as-possible Bloc Union vote, as your cute excuse to - not let money flow through the Nation as it naturally should. And that you then can keep money massively in the remit of spurious elected political parties and politicians.

EddieN75

There is a case for converting many services within the public sector to the private sector. Ie tax payer savings and improvement of quality of said services.

We should be trying to decrease the size of government and promote business growth as we don't have much else to create jobs. No production, no natural resource harvesting.

Ireland is a very liberal country. We are proud of our new found progressiveness. The problem with that too many people want big government to decide everything for them and look after them. This is not a good thing

AndrewJRenko

NovemberWren wrote: »

The social welfare could be outsourced to the private sector. And the employees could be paid very well and on an agreed steady basis, for some stated number of years.

Has this approach worked anywhere?

AndrewJRenko

EddieN75 wrote: »

There is a case for converting many services within the public sector to the private sector. Ie tax payer savings and improvement of quality of said services.

We should be trying to decrease the size of government and promote business growth as we don't have much else to create jobs. No production, no natural resource harvesting.

Why should we be trying to decrease the size of the government by shifting expenditure and employment to private sector?

daithi7

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Why should we be trying to decrease the size of the government by shifting expenditure and employment to private sector?

Because they're overpaid, over pensioned and there's no accountability and this institutional public sector sloth effect has a huge negative buffering effect on the public finances, the economy and efficiency.

E.g. easiest way to begin to reduce Ireland's CO2 levels fastest , process forestry licences efficiently, but hey, what have we got here:

https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/forestry-enviro/forestry/fears-millions-of-trees-will-be-dumped-amid-growing-forestry-crisis-40039391.html

Houses anyone

Planning delays & costs preventing quicker & cheaper development

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/planning-system-from-last-century-stalls-housebuilding-report-1.4464267

Costs of healthcare and outcomes anyone (highest spending for worst health outcomes in OECD)

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/state-among-highest-spenders-on-health-per-person-in-oecd-1.3547256

Etc, etc, etc

am_zarathustra

daithi7 wrote: »

Because they're overpaid, over pensioned and there's no accountability and this institutional public sector sloth effect has a huge negative buffering effect on the public finances, the economy and efficiency.

E.g. easiest way to begin to reduce Ireland's CO2 levels fastest , process forestry licences efficiently, but hey, what have we got here:

https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/forestry-enviro/forestry/fears-millions-of-trees-will-be-dumped-amid-growing-forestry-crisis-40039391.html

Houses anyone

Planning delays & costs preventing quicker & cheaper development

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/planning-system-from-last-century-stalls-housebuilding-report-1.4464267

Costs of healthcare and outcomes anyone (highest spending for worst health outcomes in OECD)

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/state-among-highest-spenders-on-health-per-person-in-oecd-1.3547256

Etc, etc, etc

We underspend by oecd averages on education but consistently over perform in all metrics. Do teachers get a raise by your standards?

AndrewJRenko

daithi7 wrote: »

Because they're overpaid, over pensioned and there's no accountability and this institutional public sector sloth effect has a huge negative buffering effect on the public finances, the economy and efficiency.

E.g. easiest way to begin to reduce Ireland's CO2 levels fastest , process forestry licences efficiently, but hey, what have we got here:

https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/forestry-enviro/forestry/fears-millions-of-trees-will-be-dumped-amid-growing-forestry-crisis-40039391.html

Houses anyone

Planning delays & costs preventing quicker & cheaper development

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/planning-system-from-last-century-stalls-housebuilding-report-1.4464267

Costs of healthcare and outcomes anyone (highest spending for worst health outcomes in OECD)

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/health/state-among-highest-spenders-on-health-per-person-in-oecd-1.3547256

Etc, etc, etc

1) If you want to get a fair assessment of Government activity, you might want to ask someone other than industry lobbying bodies who's only interest is to let their members push ahead regardless of how communities or the environment get damaged.
2) You might want to actually read the articles you refer to before you post them.

In terms of health spending as a percentage of GDP (gross domestic product), Ireland, in 27th place, was ranked amongst the lowest spenders last year, with 7.1 per cent of GDP spent on health.

...
“The reason is in Ireland and Luxembourg, a significant amount of GDP is not available for national consumption,” he said.

But hey, let's keep pushing on through until every possible job turns into a McJob, barely at survival level with no possibility of decent living conditions or a decent future. It's the American dream - what could possibly go wrong?

daithi7

daithi7 wrote: »

Because they're overpaid, over pensioned and there's no accountability and this institutional public sector sloth effect has a huge negative buffering effect on the public finances, the economy and efficiency.
in OECD)

Ummm €30,000 pay difference between my current and equivalent role in private sector.

My pension is not as good as my previous Diageo pension.


And forgive me if I'm wrong but I don't remember the teachers, cops, nurses, clerical staff, or others crashing our economy...

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Ummm €30,000 pay difference between my current and equivalent role in private sector.

My pension is not as good as my previous Diageo pension.


And forgive me if I'm wrong but I don't remember the teachers, cops, nurses, clerical staff, or others crashing our economy...

Talking of Guinness/Diageo. Are they still doing the highly subsidised medical care for their employees and their family members, including those on the Guinness pension?

I did a couple of jobs in the medical centre that they had on James street a good few years ago (up to 2009) and they were charging very little for family members given it was essentially a one stop shop having both GPs and a pharmacy in the one building.

Dav010

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Ummm €30,000 pay difference between my current and equivalent role in private sector.

My pension is not as good as my previous Diageo pension.


And forgive me if I'm wrong but I don't remember the teachers, cops, nurses, clerical staff, or others crashing our economy...

Teachers, cops, nurses, clerical staff didn’t take out mortgages for overpriced houses, some still in negative equity?

khalessi

Dav010 wrote: »

Teachers, cops, nurses, clerical staff didn’t take out mortgages for overpriced houses, some still in negative equity?

Some good word that, not all, same as private sector. So whats your point? Are you trying to blame recession now on teachers gardai and nurses lol

Dav010

khalessi wrote: »

Some good word that, not all, same as private sector. So whats your point? Are you trying to blame recession now on teachers gardai and nurses lol

Not at all, I’m reminding cork_exile that we are all part of the same hypocrisy when it comes to the blame for Ireland’s financial woes during the last recession. Public servants were there in line to buy those overpriced shoeboxes, right beside their private sector counterparts, so please, don’t be saying that there is no memory of public servants participating in the recklessness, some, not all private and public sector workers played their part.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

And forgive me if I'm wrong but I don't remember the teachers, cops, nurses, clerical staff, or others crashing our economy...

khalessi

Dav010 wrote: »

Not at all, I’m reminding cork_exile that we are all part of the same hypocrisy when it comes to the blame for Ireland’s financial woes during the last recession. Public servants were there in line to buy those overpriced shoeboxes, right beside their private sector counterparts, so please, don’t be saying that there is no memory of public servants participating in the recklessness, some, not all private and public sector workers played their part.

Well considering the title of this thread there is a tendency to blame PS for all of Irelands woes when the part the private sector played in overlooked so I was just asking.

sgsdfsdfsd

Lots of talk about public service pay - but public servants have only been restored to salary levels applying in 2008 in the last year. ****loads of public servants with long service at the top of their pay scales, are earning now, in 2021, the exact wage that they were earning in 2008.

Now you might say they were earning too much in 2008 blah blah blah, but I suspect there are a fair amount of private sector workers earning more than they were in 2008 for the same job.

AndrewJRenko

sgsdfsdfsd wrote: »

Lots of talk about public service pay - but public servants have only been restored to salary levels applying in 2008 in the last year. ****loads of public servants with long service at the top of their pay scales, are earning now, in 2021, the exact wage that they were earning in 2008.

Now you might say they were earning too much in 2008 blah blah blah, but I suspect there are a fair amount of private sector workers earning more than they were in 2008 for the same job.

Except that with the PRD/ASC, they are still down 6-8% with no sign of restoration on the horizon.

EddieN75

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Except that with the PRD/ASC, they are still down 6-8% with no sign of restoration on the horizon.

Pay rises are generally given for good performance.

AndrewJRenko

EddieN75 wrote: »

Pay rises are generally given for good performance.

It wouldn't be a pay rise. It would be a restoration of the previous cut.

beauf

EddieN75 wrote: »

Pay rises are generally given for good performance.

Are they over paid due to good performance. Or are they underpaid for poor performance. In which case a pay cut implies You want less performance. In which case if they are underperforming you're getting what you want.

Dav010

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

It wouldn't be a pay rise. It would be a restoration of the previous cut.

There it is again.

How many private workers have you heard or read, correcting someone that pay rises over the past 13 years were “pay restoration” of the wage cut/job loss they suffered in 2008?

Is the term “pay rise” to be avoided in the PS?