Private to Public sector: Salary

Yes.

What would be illegal about it?

some managers can get around it. I was hired at top of scale a few years ago as new entrant. They have to go through a process though.

Plus, on top of the salary scales, there's a system of allowances that can be paid to people who have, e.g., particular qualifications or specialist training. To what extent this might be relevant in relation to this (or any other) position depends on the position and how advantageous it might be for the occupant to have extra qualifications or training. (As in, they won't pay you an additional allowance for being over-qualified for the position you hold.)

I'm pretty sure his point is why should external candidates not get the same remuneration as internal candidates. It is discriminatory.

I appreciate that but it makes no sense to me (if I set aside the fact it's the PS) to overpay an internal candidate and having to backfill their previous role. And it's still discriminatory to external candidates - equal pay for the same work and all that.

What your describing is the private sector.

What your asking is to have both the mobility of the private sector with the security of public sector.

The trade for that security is the (length) tenure of service that is required.

I didn't say it was unlawful, it's discriminatory nonetheless.

It is not discriminatory because working in the private sector is not one of the 'nine grounds'.

Sounds like you're looking at roles far below your level for some reason.

It would be more logical to move into a role with salary at minimum that gas parity with your current salary.

Over qualified candidates are unlikely to stay in role thats much lower than what they are coming from.

Personally I don't consider it trivial and do consider objectionable. It doesn't sit easy with me that equally qualified and suitable candidates are paid different rates of pay depending on whether they come from the public or private sector. I think that is quite different from the normal hiring processes and weeding through candidates. But then a lot about the public sector is objectionable

They can indeed and DO get around that. The only other thing to take on board is that you will have many more deductions to your nett pay because you'll be working in the PS. Pension and pension levy being two. Salaries also can change frequently enough based on what's going on in the economy in general. The higher end of the scale you're looking at was around 84k four years ago. It happens slowly, but it can go up and down as I mentioned before. Not as simple as private sector where it's more based on your performance and general health of the company.

Nothing stopping anyone providing the same services privately and undercutting the public services. They they won't is what's mediocre.

That's not the "same" service or patients. Its different services with different resources and different patients.

That's a bit like complaining about the wait times economy airlines vs private jet.

Not really like that at all, it is very unusual system we have. Nobody in their right mind would pay on the double for the same thing, but the public health service is so awful in Ireland that many average people are willing to do precisely that.

The state struggles with 2 things generally, #1 efficient and timely provision of a limited resource (health, housing etc), #2 getting it's employees to do something they were not doing yesterday (digitisation of health service, inability to roll out mass free testing in the first Covid year resulting in long closures of businesses).

Germany managed to have free antigen testing in 2020/2021 when we were still having months long closures of restaurants. The PS went with the passive approach of just setting rules and shifting responsibility to others.

Seems to be an argument here that certain, highly-paid private sector workers should be entitled to have their salaries matched if they deign to grace the public service. But I'm not sure why they should jump in at top tier increments, given they made the decision to spend the first part of their career in the private sector, earning those "big bucks".

Complaining that you'd have to take a €20,000 to €30,000 hit is sort of tone deaf to those in the public sector who never earned that much.

Basically, the pay is the pay, everyone gets the same deal. Seems fair enough to me.

This is the typical kind of attitude: you should take what you are given and be happy with it.

Why can't we demand more from state services? Why should we be happy with it?

The housing crash was caused by the government of the day pumping the bubble, not regulating the banks and increasing spending based on one off taxes from the housing market. The only entity that has any control over any that and an ability to change rules, like mortgage lending limits etc, is the government. They could have done that at the time, but it would have been unpopular to take the sweets away, so of course they didn't.

It would be in everyone's interest to have a PS that makes it easier for highly skilled individuals from outside the PS join, even if that means that those who "have served their time" might not get the promotion they were "in line for" or whatever. That kind of thinking has resulted in the PS that we have today, one that struggles with anything related to new tech.

The Govt might have sat on its hands. But the private sector built the bubble and burst it.

Its the typical attitude. People wanting others to do what they aren't willing to do themselves. Backseat driving.

Many people in Ireland rightly look at other countries that manage to have decent health services and wonder why we can't have the same? A big part of it is an inflexible state system, resistance to change, lifers who see the PS has their little fiefdom and are challenged by people outside criticising it.

As someone who'd like to make the move myself I'll have a shot at answering that:

1. Job Security - Private companies can go bust or have to lay off staff during hard times. During the recession in 2009, I was made redundant despite being in a position where I was making money for the company I worked for, at statutory minimum and with a young family to support at the time. I ended up commuting to London for just over 6 months during some of my kids most formative years before I could get a permanent position at home again (actually still in a more senior version of that position 12 years later). The experience can change you. It certainly left me more risk averse.
2. Family friendly hours or "work life balance". The firm I work for now are pretty family friendly being a relative small, practically family business, but previous roles I've had in the private sector have been the classic 50/60 hours a week with another 10 hours of travel or commuting time on top and still checking emails / having a "quick" conference call with a foreign office after hours. I still occasionally have weeks or months like that but they're the exception rather than the rule, in many MNCs or larger organisations, they're the norm.
3. You may laugh at this one but a draw to public service. Most of the truly satisfying projects I've been involved with have been with my public sector clients. Helping to make a particular department more efficient, freeing up public facing staff to focus on that side of their job rather than paperwork, report generation and "drudge work" feels more personally satisfying than helping a private sector client to better analyse the profitability of their various divisions etc. An example from a UK based council I worked with during Covid was leveraging data they had in their social housing system about a rental credit for those suffering from Covid and merging it with geo-spatial data about properties in their borough to provide mapping of Covid outbreaks. The feeling of doing some "good" during a pandemic certainly didn't reflect in my pay for that month but it was inarguably of benefit to my mental health at the time and something I'd like to experience more of. Of course it doesn't compare to vocation that front line staff in the health service must have but I think there's a lot to be said for knowing you're working in a role where you're at the very least contributing to the good of the greater public rather than simply selling them something.