Should Public Sector be Recession Proof?

[Blogger-In-Chief]

It seems to me that while the rest of the economy is under-going rationalisation, while the company cars are being taken back, while the execs must fly economy class or at best business class and pay freezes are the norm, the public sector is recession proof and the unions and public sector workers vote themselves unsustainable pay increases and bonuses (for no increased productivity) while the country goes down the tubes.

The unions have to get it through their heads that the country can't afford pay public sector pay increases, benchmarking increases, indexed pension increases and at the same time maintain staffing numbers. It's a case of simple economics and the unions are acting like communists, putting the worker first before the good of the country, the old, the unemployed, the sick, those currently being educated and too young to work. It truely is a case of the strong grabbing all the money for themselves in terms of pay and bonuses and leaving those without jobs and the young children without substitute teachers, because there is no more money left out of the education budget, most of it gone on salaries for fat cat teachers, while the sick and elderly wait on trolleys, money wasted on pay and bonuses for underperforming middle management in the public sector, the kind of useless middle management which the blinkered unions will defend to the hilt.

The unions are slowly but surely destroying this country, along with a weak government who are scared of the unions. And so the unions and their defenders on this site, faced with the reality of the situation experienced by the rest of the country merely scoff in their ivory towers and say 'Let them eat cake' and continue with their unpatriotic behaviour.

[Big Bobo]

You really believe that sh1t don't you? Everyone knows it was the nurses, the guards, the teachers, the doctors and the civil servants- especially the civil servants who caused this financial recession. Nothing to do with the greed of the profiteers, the speculators, the bankers, the developers, the industrialists or capitalists.


It is the incompetence and greed of the private sector which is at fault. We need to look at private sector reform. Save your Murdoch propaganda for someplace else.

[Blogger-In-Chief]

So we should just put up with 3000 managers in the HSE who do nothing, or the first class air tickets of FAS execs?

[zakalwe1]

no one has a problem with the teachers, doctors, nurses, gardai, firemen etc. they have a problem with the myriad of administrators and bureaucrats.

i suspect that front line staff account for less than 25% of the headcount, and less than 15% of the payroll for the public sector.

[Kevin Doyle]

So we should just put up with 3000 managers in the HSE who do nothing, or the first class air tickets of FAS execs?

Mr Colm McCarthy is the man tasked by Government to address Public sector spending.

[zakalwe1]

big bobbo,

if, as you seem to imply, the public sector should be recession proof, then surely they should be boom-proof too? in that case the benchmarking, to bring public sector pay levels to those perceived in the private sector in the height of the boom, is unjustifiable.

the boom was created by the private sector, yet the public sector demanded a piece of the pie.

care to explain your hyprocracy?

[Kevin Doyle]

no one has a problem with the teachers, doctors, nurses, gardai, firemen etc. they have a problem with the myriad of administrators and bureaucrats.

i suspect that front line staff account for less than 25% of the headcount, and less than 15% of the payroll for the public sector.

Figuratively speaking you may be correct. But Teachers and in particular Nurses are regularly attacked both on this forum and within the wider media.

The problelm in identifiying waste is that those who will be given the job of identifying it by the latest committee will be the adminstraters and bureaucrats and the accountants etc etc.

[the crimson chin]

the civil servants- especially the civil servants

RTÉ News: FÁS chief to be quizzed on expenses

Whereas I dont agree 100% with the BIC, he does raise a point. Private sector employees are all getting cut-backs, job-losses, less expenses and struggling while the public sector is secure in the knowledge that they will always be paid. But surely they are paid by the private sector, so when the private sector is struggling, they have to take cut-backs like the rest of us. Who cares whether it was bankers, developers etc who caused this, the fact of the matter is that we're all in the sh** together so the public sector should feel some cutbacks.

I'm not talking about teachers, nurses etc. who are generally lower paid (even though they should realise that now is NOT the time to start harping on about pay increases when everyone else is doing the opposite). I'm talking about high paid civil servants like consultants, the different agency staff and of course our politicians.

[Kevin Doyle]

[Private sector employees are all getting cut-backs, job-losses, less expenses and struggling.

You cannot claim that is happening to all private sector workers.

But surely they are paid by the private sector.

They are paid by Government from a combination of revenue generated and tax take.

so when the private sector is struggling, they have to take cut-backs like the rest of us.

There are cut backs in the Public Sector already underway and they are set to get worse.

Who cares whether it was bankers, developers etc who caused this, the fact of the matter is that we're all in the sh** together so the public sector should feel some cutbacks..

The point is, if you are playing the them and us card then the Private sector should shoulder the blame for causing this mess. It shouldn’t demand the Public Sector carry the burden equally for something it had absolutely nothing to do with.

I'm not talking about teachers, nurses etc. who are generally lower paid (even though they should realise that now is NOT the time to start harping on about pay increases when everyone else is doing the opposite).

Who is harping on about pay increases? I do not know of any Teachers or Nurses who have demanded a pay increase either publically or privately. That’s a Straw man arguement I'm afraid.

I'm talking about high paid civil servants like consultants, the different agency staff and of course our politicians.

The only civil servants in the above grouping are Politicians.

[zakalwe1]

Figuratively speaking you may be correct. But Teachers and in particular Nurses are regularly attacked both on this forum and within the wider media.

The problelm in identifiying waste is that those who will be given the job of identifying it by the latest committee will be the adminstraters and bureaucrats and the accountants etc etc.

kevin,

i totally agree. i hate seeing hospital wards closing, post offices closing etc while the admin staff grows as new departments/committees/quangos proliferate. surely the govt should implement a 3:1 frontline to admin staff hire/replacement ratio with an overall target for say, 2011 of 50:50 frontline to admin staff (capping total public sector employment at 2008 levels).

i would gladly pay an extra 5% income tax if accompanied with a promise that all the money would go towards more gardai, teachers, nurses and street cleaners etc.

see big bobbo, both left and right can agree on some things (hugely important things).