Bernard Shaw said that all professions are a conspiracy against the public. To which I would add,many outrageously reactionary pubic sector unions which prevent efficient delivery of public services at a reasonable cost while featherbedding their members in jobs for life.

Some examples:

[]Only recently teachers unions agreed to allow schools to dismiss underperforming teachers without going through impossible procedural hoops,but better late than never. So for decades,for each teacher who should have been dismissed,the education of thousands of children was blighted. This is particularly damaging in primary schools where teachers have a class for the day.

[]According to a P.ie poster today,the Irish nurses union weeps crocodile tears over inadequate patient services while making it nearly impossible to dismiss underperforming nurses and insisting on outdated work practices. This may have contributed to the fact that Ireland heads the league table internationally in terms of number of nurses employed per thousand people,with nearly double the number of France which has an excellent health service http://www.euphix.org/object_document/o5172n27416.html. If fewer Irish nurses were efficiently employed with introduction of computerised patient files and consolidation of hospitals into fewer,larger units,the reduction in the number of nurses could pay for expansion of the health services in areas like speech therapy,physiotherapy and drug rehabs. This criticism is not directed at hard working front line nurses but at the poor quality of nursing management impeded by outdated union work practices.

[]The ESB's union leader Brendan Ogle has threatened a strike if ESB is ordered to give its dominant portion of the retail power transmission grid to state owned Eirgrid. The government caved in to the threat while pretending to do a further study of the issue. As long as ESB controls the grid,foreign power producers will be very reluctant to build power stations, so the ESB monopoly is secure but at the expense of Ireland's future energy security. That monopoly allows ESB to pay plant operatives in its Dublin gas plants around €130,000 a year,incidentally an ungrateful lot who constantly bicker with management according to an ESB manager of my acquaintance.

[]Prison guards' manipulation of overtime is well publicised and it is probably still going on.

[]The Garda Siochana have allowed only about 10% of the admin staff positions to be filled by civilians compared to about 50% in Britain. Former minister of justice McDowell managed to get this changed but the pace of the change could be very slow as it is unlikely that deskbound gardai are going back on the street.

Of course,the government bears the ultimate responsibility for allowing trade unions to impose reactionary work conditions on the public sector but it very difficult for governments to stand up to them since unions are clever at representing themselves as defenders of the public interest. The Irish public which has a sentimental attitude towards unions should realise that what's good for the unions isn't necessarily good for the country.

when your spoiled for so long , you develop a sense of entitlement which results in a negative reaction when your untennable cushy conditions are called into question

You are so right-I am wrong to not enquire why those who benefited most from the boom -Developers, should pay their fair share or that perhaps unproductive assets (like land being held until the next boom) be taxed. Im so ashamed of my views! Slash my pay ,because the Bankers and Developers need my help. The 33,000 millionaires we generated -how are they coping?

It's not a question of deservng or undserving public servants. It looks like we just won't be able to afford them all.

The government paid for the expansion of the public service with the taxes they got from the property boom. That money is no longer available. And there is nowhere else to get it.

The cuts will be savage but that will just be to steady the ship of state. In the long run we will have to face up to serious questions about what we want from the state and how much can we afford to pay for it.

Wow, if only we had a government, instead of being in somalia where there is none. Imagine if we had someone in power, a leader....a....a TAOISEACH no less. Wouldnt that be great. Then the people could vote for policies they want. Instead, the dictatorship of the PS unions, with their massive majority in the votes, insures we get the above. Tell you what, we should take the vote off anyone who
#works in the public sector ;
# has a friend/relative who works in the public sector or
# uses any public sector service.
Thatd tell em...

Where did you get the idea that public service unions were interested in the delivery of public services?

The welfare state is starting to leak and its going to be very hard to stop the ship sinking.

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The trifling economy of paper, as a cheaper medium, or its convenience for transmission, weighs nothing in opposition to the advantages of the precious metals... it is liable to be abused, has been, is, and forever will be abused, in every country in which it is permitted." --Thomas Jefferson to John W. Eppes, 1813.

The situation in a nutshell.

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Its only a chat, we ain't the world council.
In 2000 the Women's Institute in Britain gave Tony Blair the slow hand clap to demonstrate their contempt.
It was dignified, restrained and effective.Doesn't Bertie deserve the same scorn. No shouting, no abuse, no agression just a relentless slow clap whenever he speaks in public would be enough to end that man's presidential fantasy.
If you agree copy the signature in to yours and lets get the whole country slow clapping Bertie.

See the situation in Sligo Town where the council staff have thrown a hissy fit over being challenged by a councillor.
They refuse to attend council meetings while drawing full salaries.

I don't see the Irish public as being 'sentimental' about unions. No one is saying anything good about the Public sector these days. Everyone is saying what you're saying, except you gave some actual examples of inefficiencies, most people just make blanket generalizations that insult the staff.