Well we've had boom time recently & as we know we've a large public sector whose wages are set by the government. Even Mary Harney, a purported free-marketeer, couldn't restrain herself in Health & was spending way over the rate of inflation.




Great to take pick some money from the magical tree if you're a lazy spin-meister politician.

ISME are now warning

It's been very easy for the government to fritter away the boom as everyone's have been rising so we haven't noticed that we are paying more in total taxes. The public sector have jobs for life, full pensions & are unfireable (even if they run a brothel from work). There will be a downturn after this boom at some time & the PAYE workers will still have to fund the greedy public sector.

The government have bought this election alright, just nobody noticed, this will make the 1977 spend look like a minor error.

cYp

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I agree 100% , if there is any slowdown in the economy the public service is going to be a huge millstone around our necks.

Agreed- the taxpayer got very little in return for benchmarking. The public sector payroll will ruin the country in next economic slowdown and will cost FF in the medium to long term.

The public employees got all the benefits but gave very little increases in productivity or changes in archaic work practices - try speaking to a tax office, council worker or HSE employee after 5pm!!!!!

FG are as bad - their fawning and grovelling over the nursing unions was a cynical act of leaving their principles behind them for a few possible extra votes.

The average public sector worker is better-educated and more highly-skilled than the average private-sector worker - just because of what the public sector does (medicine, teaching, administration etc).
Also, most public sector workers are represented by unions whereas most private-sector workers are not, and collective bargaining puts workers in a stronger position. All public-sector workers get the national pay agreement increases for example, and many private-sector workers do not. It's more a case of private-sector workers being underpaid than public-sector workers being overpaid.

I agree 100% , if there is any slowdown in the economy the public service is going to be a huge millstone around our necks.[/quote]

Replace "If" with "When". It always happens. Mind you I have been waiting since 2000, but the imbalence in the economy is now dangerous. Demographics, the great word of current housing market puffers, will not defy gravity for ever.

I know the American economy is based on serving one another hamburgers and sueing one another but a trip to the states shows there are phenomenal resources readily available.

We are trying to live off selling houses to one another and that does come to an end.

Love or hate Michael McDowell, he is sometimes 1/2 right.
Whatever government is formed will almost crtainly preside over a slump.
Might be a good election to loose.

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How come if they are soooo well educated that they've to bring in consultants for every piece of change? (I've only once encountered a good quality IT person working in public sector).

Do the public sector generate any of the wealth (that is used to pay them !) ? Do they take any risk ?

The private sector:

GPs (medicine)
Solicitors
Barristers
Financial Services (administration)
...

Also very few if any teachers are actually top flight... those that can... etc

But you crucial point I agree on: yes they do engage in collective bargaining with ... politicians ! This bargaining simply isn't relevant in the private sector as the market sets the rates- if I'm in company A doing job type X I can move to Company B doing job type X for higher pay. And what is at issue here is that the politicians have b*llixed up the bargaining.

cYp

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"Yawn , am I alive yet ?"

Tribe - no offence but that is the biggest load of rubbish I have read in a long long time...

The private sector is the sector that is fuelling this economy not the public sector...
The reason the public sector are paid more is basically because Bertie is a total coward and would sooner hand over money hand over fist to them rather than try to reform the public service and he is too afraid of losing some votes....He can quite easily just hand over billions of taxpayers money without having to justify himself to anyone and when the economy starts to fall the private sector will be left to pick up the bill...
Companies in the private sector don't have the ability to just hand over cash willy-nilly for incapable staff like in the public sector and have to get value for money etc...

Well said Dublinguy, I have to say I also agree with you 100%..... I would in many ways like to be working in the public sector, when I have absolutely no worries about the stability of my job / position.......... The nurses are now after getting a 37.5 hour week so we now have to employ more nurses to cover the reduction in hours worked and they are still not too happy about it........ Any of my colleagues in the private sector would love to be able to work a 39 hour week never mind a 37.5 hour week....... I work on average a 40 hour week and the phone is on, company policy every weekend........ As for what you have said Tribe, I have no idea where you got your information from but the majority of employees in the Private sector are highly educated with most professions taking at least five years of study.......!

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Some good points. The intention of this line of argument from those on the right is not to lift everyone up to an acceptable wage but to engage in divide and conquer between the public and the private. Slamming wages down across the board. Put simply it is an anti-solidarity strategy. And this at a time of record profits for business and where business unions are gouging their employees pensions and benefits!

I have to laugh at ISME berating us about charges and stealth taxes tho'. If we were to have provision of public services through the private system then both public and private workers (and small business) would end up paying more through charges (which are precursor to privatisation in any case)

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Everyone working in my company has a minimum of 4 years training be that as an apprentice or in university. To say the public sector is better qualified than the private is pure snobbery.

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