An Bord Snip Nua wants 20,000 public sector job cuts.

[Gruffalo]

The key thing is how these cuts are to be achieved

Redundancies are far too expensive

I know of several (smart) companies that managed to achieve cuts of order 10-20% over the past 2 years through natural attrition

However public sector workers rarely leave their jobs except through retirement... also for cuts through natural attrition to work : remaining workers will need to be flexible and accept redeployment...

To deal with these people is going to be a political nightmare...

cYp

It would be interesting to see how many would be due for retirement over the next year or so. It certainly wont be 20,000 but it could be a nice number.

It would also be interesting to know how many of these jobs have already been shed. They have been along time reviewing this, so for example, is it 20,000 jobs from the number employed in March or the number employed now?

[True Republican]

What's the odds that there will even be 1,000 public sectro redundancies, our political establishment doesn't have the balls to take on the unions full stop.

[red leveller]

It needs to be at least 80,000 public sector jobs, get rid of all the useless pen pushers.

Indeed. And you, I assume, will provide criteria for deciding who is "useless"? Or perhaps they are all useless? Perhaps there is no need whatsoever for any admin anywhere in the services the state supplies?

Or perhaps you are talking ********************e?

[red leveller]

We need a temporary right wing dictatorship in this country to take on the unions, where's the Irish Pinochet in the Defence Forces.

Oh that's fantastic!!! I suppose you claim to be a democrat? You are in favour of the right to assembly and combination, but only for the right type of person?

[SamVimesBoots]

We need a temporary right wing dictatorship in this country to take on the unions, where's the Irish Pinochet in the Defence Forces.

I was just thinking about this the other day. What if a party appeared that promised to immediately hold a referendum to suspend the Constitution for say 8 years in order to clean up the mess by any means necessary.

We're already an international pariah and laughing stock, and our existing political system is clearly completely incapable of making any decisions or taking any decisive action.

It might not be the worst option. Suspend, rip down the FF croneyist State, rebuild, offer a new Constitution and radically reformed political system and public sector back to the People after 6-8 years. Republic 2.0.

Could it really be any worse than another decade of that shower of clowns in the Dáil?

[Digout]

Indeed. And you, I assume, will provide criteria for deciding who is "useless"? Or perhaps they are all useless? Perhaps there is no need whatsoever for any admin anywhere in the services the state supplies?

Or perhaps you are talking ********************e?

I've worked in a number of government departments and I'll define useless as people who have no work to do. Other examples of useless are people who have no idea what they are doing being put in charge of projects/departments.

[red leveller]

All this talk of cuts in the public service. There are issues that seriously need to be addressed with this idea.

One is the issue of where any cuts might occur? Those who argue that there are 20,000 superfluous admin posts in the public service are really living in a dream world. 20,000 cuts in public service jobs means cuts in services and there is no way to spin that away. So where are the cuts to be? Are there too many doctors? Too many educators? Too many social workers?

A second is the issue of process. People say that the state doesn't want to launch voluntary redundancy schemes. Doesn't want to pay. So how can it proceed? Machine-gunning the unwanted into a pit somewhere?

Those who cheerlead for public sector cuts need to realise they are advocating cuts in services. It can be sold any way you like, but 20,000 less employees means less of our already crap services.
Cuts outside of attrition will have to be funded - there is no way around this. It is very possible that a decent package will attract a good few of the older (and hence top-of-the-scale) public servants. But any talk of cutting staff without packages is nonsense.

[red leveller]

I've worked in a number of government departments and I'll define useless as people who have no work to do. Other examples of useless are people who have no idea what they are doing being put in charge of projects/departments.

I see. So the latter is surely a matter of problems at a more senior level? If incompetent people are being put in charge of projects, then those responsible for the appointment bear responsibility. Amending and improving systems appears to be the answer here, not redundancies.

In the case of the former, OECD did not find that the Irish public sector was overstaffed. They found that there were problems with the distribution of staff. So this is an argument, not for redundancies, but for transfers within the state sector.

And do you suggest there are 20,000 people in the state sector who have no work to do anyway?

[True Republican]

I was just thinking about this the other day. What if a party appeared that promised to immediately hold a referendum to suspend the Constitution for say 8 years in order to clean up the mess by any means necessary.

We're already an international pariah and laughing stock, and our existing political system is clearly completely incapable of making any decisions or taking any decisive action.

It might not be the worst option. Suspend, rip down the FF croneyist State, rebuild, offer a new Constitution and radically reformed political system and public sector back to the People after 6-8 years. Republic 2.0.

Could it really be any worse than another decade of that shower of clowns in the Dáil?

Sam, I was only joking about the dictatorship bit, unforunately Ireland would be expelled from every international organisation and dictatorships always turn out messy, Pinochet committed terrible human rights abuses but he did implement sound free market economic policies. Personally, I don't think Irish people are suited to democracy, It hasn't done Ireland an awful lot of good over the last 18 months. But the alternatives would be worse. I agree with you on changing the constitution and ripping up the public sector, perhaps trade unions should be suspended from going on strike for the next five years till they see sense and the government should introduce internment for all trade union leaders who act irresponsibly.

[red leveller]

I was just thinking about this the other day. What if a party appeared that promised to immediately hold a referendum to suspend the Constitution for say 8 years in order to clean up the mess by any means necessary.

We're already an international pariah and laughing stock, and our existing political system is clearly completely incapable of making any decisions or taking any decisive action.

It might not be the worst option. Suspend, rip down the FF croneyist State, rebuild, offer a new Constitution and radically reformed political system and public sector back to the People after 6-8 years. Republic 2.0.

Could it really be any worse than another decade of that shower of clowns in the Dáil?

Even better. Perhaps a group who are identifiable through wearing the same coloured shirts could be invited into a coalition with FF or FG. Then they could organise for Leinster House to be burnt down, blame that on the unions, ban the unions and impose rule by dictat.

Then the trains would run on time and there would be no concerns about workers going on strike.