[Article] Civil servants prefer cars to buses

Victor

http://www.thepost.ie/post/pages/p/story.aspx-qqqid=4090-qqqx=1.asp

Civil servants prefer cars to buses

17 April 2005 By Pat Leahy
More than €30 million was paid out in tax-free travel expenses to civil and public servants in 13 government departments last year.

The amount paid out in mileage for private vehicles dwarfs the amount for public transport, according to replies to questions put by Green TD Eamon Ryan.

Of the 13 departments which furnished replies to Ryan's questions (health and communications failed to reply), two accounted for the bulk of the claims.

The Department of Agriculture paid just under €10 million in mileage to its civil servants last year. The amount of expenses paid for bus and rail travel was just €64,000.

The Department of Justice paid more than €10 million in total.

However, more than €7million of this total was paid to members of the Garda. Just €214,000 was paid out for public transport.

Ryan, the Green Party's transport spokesman, said the mileage culture was encouraging people to take their cars rather than public transport.

“We need to change the incentives to make public transport the first choice - maybe cap the Dublin-Cork mileage at the cost of a first class train ticket,” said Ryan.

“The bias towards cars is remarkable and is adding to our congestion problems, rather than easing them.”

The amounts paid by other departments in mileage last year were as follows:
Social and Family Affairs: €2.14 million
Foreign Affairs : €423,000
Arts, Sport and Tourism: €74,000 plus €6,400 public transport
Taoiseach : €89,000 plus €5,500 public transport
Community, Rural and Gaeltacht: €244,000 plus €13,000 public transport
Defence: €2.5 million plus €741,000 public transport
Environment : €1.4 million plus €66,000 public transport
Enterprise: €717,000 plus €55,000 public transport
Education: €1.2 million plus €99,000 public transport plus €95,000 taxis
Transport: €682,000 plus €4,000 public transport
Finance: €108,000 plus €5,900 public transport.

sceptre

“We need to change the incentives to make public transport the first choice - maybe cap the Dublin-Cork mileage at the cost of a first class train ticket,” said Ryan.

I used to work for a largish company with an office in Limerick and one in Dublin which took this step. Suddenly almost everyone was happy to take the train. Before that it was pretty much just me (and I didn't have a car at the time) and one girl in the recruitment division that owned a Clio that took the train troute for inter-office meetings.

Padraig Mor

I work in UCC, and the mileage on the Cork - Dublin and Cork - Belfats routes are capped at the cost of a train ticket.

Turner

Would travelling in your own car not be cheaper than public transport.

ie taxi from home to train station - return ticket to destination town - taxi from train station in destination town to destination - taxi back to train station - taxi from home train station to home.

as opposed to own car to destination and back.

Your own car would be cheaper to be honest!!

Oh and the reason taxis are involved is if you have to be somewhere at 9/10 am in the morning a bus service will not always be available (have to be in cork by 10am travelling from dublin)

murphaph

Chief--- wrote:

Would travelling in your own car not be cheaper than public transport.

That's the problem. People can cream their organisations for the mileage and make a tidy 'profit' by using their own cars at 42p a mile! This doesn't mean they won't pay for taxis to the station too, but the idea is that you'll more than likely take pt which would be cheaper than them paying you full mileage for taking your own car. They have to pay you a healthy sum to take your car because you will have extra costs like wear and tear apart from petrol to cover.

Capt'n Midnight

The Department of Agriculture paid just under €10 million in mileage to its civil servants last year. The amount of expenses paid for bus and rail travel was just €64,000.

0.64% :eek:

“We need to change the incentives to make public transport the first choice - maybe cap the Dublin-Cork mileage at the cost of a first class train ticket,” said Ryan.

Why first class ?
At least make it only for higher grades

Has anyone worked out how much extra milage will be needed because of decentralisation ??

cyclopath2001

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

0.64% :eek:
Has anyone worked out how much extra milage will be needed because of decentralisation ??

According to the promoters of the scheme to coerce over 10,000 staff and their families to relocate into FF/PD constituencies, there will be no need for travel as everyone will use video-conferencing.

No money has been set aside for this nor has anyone bothered to find out if video-conferencing works.

C:\

MorningStar

cyclopath2001 wrote:

No money has been set aside for this nor has anyone bothered to find out if video-conferencing works.

Why would you need to put money aside to find out if it "works"? It's well proven technology! If there is no budget for training I'd be worried. Video-conferencing is a little difficult to get used to and some people will dislike it but it does work and has for 10 years.

ishmael whale

MorningStar wrote:

Why would you need to put money aside to find out if it "works"? It's well proven technology! If there is no budget for training I'd be worried. Video-conferencing is a little difficult to get used to and some people will dislike it but it does work and has for 10 years.

The physical technology of video conferencing may well be stable. But I think the point is people typically use it when there is some natural impediment to physical contact. No-one deliberately engineers a situation to create a need for video conferencing. Why would you spend money to separate people just so you could hand over more money for a load of technology and ongoing expense to enable them to communicate? Which is what the decentralisation plan amounts to, and no-one has yet come up with a precedent for it.

cyclopath2001

MorningStar wrote:

Why would you need to put money aside to find out if it "works"?

Erm, to buy the equipment and the bandwidth?

I've used videoconferencing, it barely works only for certain kinds of meeting and is totally unsuitable for informal meetings at somebody's desk. These are often the most productive.

Sometimes you just have to be there to be effective.

parsi

Hmm.. If I want to use my car to go Cork - Dublin I can't unless there is a very compelling reason (never happened yet). I can drive but I'll only get the train fare and thats the situation for all civil servants.

People should also note that the bulk of mileage is for Field Staff and the like - these people visit multiple locations during their working day eg Dept Vets going on their rounds of meat factories or TB testing - for this type of travel public transport isn't an option.

Victor

parsi wrote:

People should also note that the bulk of mileage is for Field Staff and the like - these people visit multiple locations during their working day eg Dept Vets going on their rounds of meat factories or TB testing - for this type of travel public transport isn't an option.

Fair enough, but some people will still contrive situations to maximise mileage, e.g. detectives who worked in the airport, but were based in city stations - this way they could claim mileage and lunch allowances. Of course when the Bank of Ireland in the airport was robbed there wasn't a timely response, despite the airport Garda station being only a few hundred metres away.

The_Conductor

In defense of the Department of Agriculture- a lot of their travel costs are associated with their inspectorate duties- i.e. farms have to be visited, checks have to be made etc. It is also the most decentralised of all the Government Departments already, with in excess of 85% of its staff based outside Dublin.

If Public transport is a viable option- i.e. if the journey in question is between Dublin and Cork- certainly cap the trip at the price of a train ticket. However, in the case of the above Department- were you to check, I think you would find a lot of their travel was not to locations convenient for public transport.

Also- re: 40p per mile "raking in a tidy profit"......
According to the AA- assuming an average sized car, and less than 10,000km work related travel per annum, you would have to be getting over 80 cent per mile to cover costs......

http://www.aaireland.ie/toptips/costofmotoring2004.asp

Shane