Why is the Irish Labour party such a failure ?

Hard decisions also involve standing up for what you believe and doing the right thing.

It very easy to sit there and collect the added Ministerial salary and not stand up for what you belief in. Labour excelled at that tbf to them.

Sold out the working class years ago when sharing government

Really don't see how SF will be in opposition next time round barring some voting strategy disaster or a grand coalition of "Everyone but SF".

oh you can be damn sure its gonna be a sf government next time around, people have had enough, i think it ll be sff myself, but who knows

👏👏💪🇮🇪Country needs change

if SF make a hames of it they’ll join the likes of labour

here’s hoping the monopoly of FF/ FG gets busted

The Labour party is an upper middle class party. Ivana has zero working class appeal. Awful choice.

It was bloody plush looking as we walked by

The Labour Party is a failure because Brendan Howlin completely wrecked everything for them.

He came in as Minister for the Public Service and was given power. It went to his head and he decided to use this power with giddy excitement and glee. He started attacking and slashing everything around him with unbridled enthusiasm.

There was a national crisis at the time. So he started by bringing in additional working hours for all civil and public servants. You literally had to work an extra day per month, every month, and there was no closing date when the new working arrangement would revert back when the crisis was over.

People on flexitime have to count every single minute they spend in work, and they absolutely detested the extra 1/2 an hour per day, every day, that he made them work at the end of what was already for many of them an already long day. This 1/2 hour was just to just to stand still on the clock.

At the same time, he proceeded to slash the sick leave entitlement of civil/public servants.

Under the sick leave system that was in place previously, you were entitled to full pay for a cumulative 6 months over a 4 year period. Overnight he changed this to 3 months.

Now 3 months might sound like a lot, but as people get older naturally things start to go wrong and parts to wear out with your body. You might have 2 weeks sick leave one year, a week the next, 2 weeks the next year and a couple of single days in between. Your now in year 4 and then you have something major comes up with your health. You're on 1/2 pay or pension rate of pay before you can blink. You then have to appeal against being put on 1/2 pay followed by pension rate of pay. This involves writing out an appeal, attending the CMO, getting more medical reports and really being put through the hoops, at a time when you're really not up to it.

You're sick, you may have a totally unblemished sick leave record up to that, and that little runt decides to pull the rug out from under you, just when you need it, because he can. Small man syndrome in operation.

As far as I'm aware he said or intimated at the time, that the sick leave system in the public service was being abused. Well maybe it was by some, I don't know. It certainly wasn't be me or anyone else that I worked with. If it was being abused, it was his job to police it and to crack down hard on the abusers. Not attack every civil/public servant in the country. Nobody i know would have had any problem with him tackling abuse of the sick leave system, if it existed.

However he and the Party forgot or overlooked 3 very important points

1. That a large number of civil/public servants always voted Labour. I did for years, but never ever again.

2. That civil /public servants feel that they have a civic duty to vote and they do so at every election. Not just empty promises or soundbites that they will vote. the vast majority of the ones I know vote religiously at every election and

3. That the age profile in the civil service is rising and apparently the older you are the more likely you are to vote, and the more resentment you feel at being scapegoated by him and the Labour Party. Also, as I've said, the older you are, the more likely you are to have some major health issue arising.

Fool me once shame on you, but I'm certainly not going to give you the opportunity to fool me twice.

Absolutely, was a firm believer they came to power in 2011 as a result of a public sector vote to ease the sting from FG's austerity measures.....instead they turned on the public sector with (and I quote a union rep here) "a gusto".

Quinn set about destroying the education system with his "not fit for purpose" mantra ,Howlin set upon his public sector serfs by slashing their conditions,making them work punitive hours for the sake of it and Kelly is remembered for turning Ireland's hotel sector into the the finest "refugee" facilitation industry in the western world!

.......can't for the life of me find their new "target audience" with Batshit at the helm!

It was a kip that hadn’t had a penny spent on it for decades. If you think that was luxury, you’ve lived a sheltered life. It is one of the few hotels in Dublin with level access to the conference rooms for wheelchair users.

spearheaded legislation to convert hotels to asylum reception centres without needing planning permission.

I don't know if there was a problem with sick leave in the public service. I didn't see it myself. In fact, Personnel Section in my own old Department were well known to come down like a ton of bricks on anyone trying to game the system.

If there was a problem with S/L and it was being abused in the PS, then it was the Ministers job to fix it. Instead he took the easy option,and at the same time took the opportunity to show us how powerful he was. Unfortunately he threw out the baby with the bathwater. If the S/L scheme was being abused, I'd have applauded any minister who tightened it up and made it harder to for people to abuset, while ensuring that it looked after the health of the rest of the staff.

You're very much mistaken if you think you could take up 10 days off on uncertified S/L as some form of unauthorized A/L. Any S/L absence, by any member of staff, of more than 2 days had to be covered by a Dr's letter. You had to pay for this Dr's visit yourself (cost €60).

Going sick on a Friday, and being absent on the following Monday, was regarded as 4 days S/L and had to be covered by a Drs letter.

After, (I think it was) 4 days uncertified S/L, in a rolling year, you got a very strong warning from Personnel, and reminding you that the facility could and would be withdrawn. After 5 days uncertified S/L you got an even stronger letter and if you took your 7 sick days then the S/L facility was completely withdrawn from you, and thereafter you had to get a Drs letter for every single absence.

Uncertified S/L was seen and treated by my department as a privilege, and not a right.

I don't understand what you are saying about flexitime. Flexitime was being used long before any cut backs. Messing with the flexi clock or abusing Flexi is regarded as a very serious offence.

What Howlin actually did, was to increase the number of hours you had to attend by 30 mins per day, 2.5 hrs per week or 6 hrs per 4 week flexi period.

The reason that the age profile in the civil service is so old is not due to the Celtic Tiger. It stems back to a FF government in the late 1970's. Charley Haughey was Taoiseach. He decided that we, a small open economy, could spend our way out of a recession. All public service bodies were ordered to take on extra staff. Irate phone calls at a senior level were made from Department to bodies under their ageis, berating them for not taking on enough staff.

After nearly totally bankrupting the Country with this insanity, it became obvious that the recruitment drive wasn't working, and a complete Public Service Embargo was brought in. There were no public service recruitment for years after that, but those who were recruited and stayed, are all now 60 or approaching it. Many have about 40 years service, and as they are eligible for an immediate pension, are leaving or have left the PS in droves.

Revenue are the only civil service Department that I'm aware of, that took steps to prepare for the huge amount of corporate knowledge that was just about to walk out the door.

Weve no need for a labour party Sinn Fein will look after us when they get in free houses free education free bins Labour promised these things but never delivered Sinn Fein will get it right

They cant get it right up North