Originally Posted by Cato

I don't agree that the case for a rise in Nurses' pay rates has been made yet, as sufficient evidence or argument has been advanced yet to justify it. (Sorry Hopi! ) However, you are also failing to make your case. You also seem to have some kind of a priori objection to anyone in their early 20's earning a decent wage - please justify.

You have also failed to justify your belief that nurses are overpaid. On what basis and assumptions have you arrived at this position?

I have no objection to somebody in their very early 20's earning mucho cash but I do when the taxpayer is footing the bill. Nursing is not a rare or extremely difficult to achieve qualification and therefore the wage on starting should not be in excess of the average industrial wage.

I have made my assumptions based on comparisons with the earnings of other professions in the private sector.

Originally Posted by Cato

OK - now move beyond this point. You need to show that the nurses in the UK are not underpaid. Also, the different costs of living have to be taken into account as do the effective income tax rates. Finally are the relative duties similar in workload and extent?

The cost of living in Ireland is crazy and this drove a spiralling public sector pay bill. Who do I blame for this? - the Government and their property developer chums. It was they who drove the price of property outside the reach of vital state employees like nurses and teachers.

Unfortunately rather than address and control the property bubble the Government decided to placate public sector workers by giving them large salary increases. This was o.k. once the property bubble cash was rolling in but now with its collapse the Government is left with a massive public sector wage bill on one hand and a collapsed tax intake on the other. All salaries in Ireland went out of control, and with them prices for everything, leaving us completely uncompetetive in an unfortunately globalised economy.

The solution to this is to allow property prices to fall and to try and lower the public sector wage bill which forms a huge chunk of exchequer spending. Nurses like everybody else in Ireland will pay the price for FF/PD idiocy. To suggest public sector wage increases at a time when the very existence of the Irish state as a viable economy is in question is lunacy.

Nurses in the NHS may well be underpaid but nurses in Britain are prepared to work for this amount so it must be assumed that the salary is satisfactory to the majority of them.

Hopi you really haven't got a clue.Nurses are constantly moaning and f88king whinging ,I worked as one they would drive a person to their sickbed with sh1te that they go on about.
Keep blaming Harney if it makes you feel good,the nurses better have a good look at themselves,they are well paid for the job they do ,have a short working week,the job isn't rocket science.

Originally Posted by hopi watcher

And they just might. When you have your accident, ring the Civil Defence.
BTW, nurses are not here 'moaning and whinging', they are merely defending themselves from scurrilous attacks from the last few PDs still standing. The nurses took on Harney and have succeeded in drawing back the veil of mystery that she for so long hid behind. What we see is such incompetence, it even makes Cullen look good.

Nothing changes in this thread !!

High salaries for likes of Nurses drive demand for nursing courses up and points went higher than science degrees. Long term we need to develop less nurses and more scientists/engineers etc but public sector pay distorts whole workforce and demand for certain careers, as does cartel like behaviour in the profession too.

Originally Posted by atlantic

Hopi you really haven't got a clue.Nurses are constantly moaning and f88king whinging ,I worked as one they would drive a person to their sickbed with sh1te that they go on about.
Keep blaming Harney if it makes you feel good,the nurses better have a good look at themselves,they are well paid for the job they do ,have a short working week,the job isn't rocket science.

Your opinion-with which those that do this 'simple' job do not agree. Isn't it remarkable the number of those attacking nurses that seek to justify their attacks by claiming that they were, are, or have family members who are/were, nurses?

Originally Posted by b.a. baracus

If I was you I would give up the ghost. The only veil of mystery lurking around nurses earnings is the one created by Liam Doran and the INO. When people find out what nurses actually earn their attitudes usually change pretty sharpish. By bringing what they earn into the public domain you are only shooting yourself in the foot. Nurses should be extremely happy with what they earn. It is not an easy job and I admire them but unfortunately we can only pay what we can afford as a state and they are already being paid much more than this.

I'll give it to Liam Doran - he is the best union rep in the country and deserves whatever nurses pay him to represent them. I have seen him stand beside a nurse at a protest when the nurse said she earned only 28k after 10 years service. The starting annual salary is 31k plus allowances so she must have been part-time.

Nurses don't give up the ghost and there will come a time when you will appreciate that. And the butt of your arguement is that in your view 'nurses SHOULD be happy with their lot' Well heres the news, they are not and a further truth is that they now are what Harney and her henchmen made them. By throwing tax payers money around like rice at a wedding to her pals and the chosen ones, she opened a huge gap between the various grades in the health service and people rightly began to question why they were being left out of this widefall. Putting the genie back in the bottle is going to take a Minisiter that undertakes the job from the starting position of providing a health service that all can equally access and manned by a workforce threated fairly and rewarded in accordance with thier contributuion.

I have told you hopi I worked as one and my wife still does ,but you because of your unionititis type thinking can not accept that .It's you and your type of antagonistic rabble- rousers that bring the system to a grinding halt.You could bend over backwards ,give in to all your whims it would never be enough,ye are like spoilt children constantly looking for more.

Originally Posted by hopi watcher

Your opinion-with which those that do this 'simple' job do not agree. Isn't it remarkable the number of those attacking nurses that seek to justify their attacks by claiming that they were, are, or have family members who are/were, nurses?

Originally Posted by atlantic

I have told you hopi I worked as one and my wife still does ,but you because of your unionititis type thinking can not accept that .It's you and your type of antagonistic rabble- rousers that bring the system to a grinding halt.You could bend over backwards ,give in to all your whims it would never be enough,ye are like spoilt children constantly looking for more.

Don't be so rediculous, nurses are among the most benign group of workers in this state and have been exploited ruthlessly accordingly over the years and for you to suggest otherwise outs your silly clams to be close to it. No nurse, former or existing, would put forward such a view on nurses.

And the unions represent the nurses and is the nurses. It is not some free standing entity acting without a mandate.

Any constructive contribution to make other than bluster?

Originally Posted by Cato

OK - now move beyond this point. You need to show that the nurses in the UK are not underpaid. Also, the different costs of living have to be taken into account as do the effective income tax rates. Finally are the relative duties similar in workload and extent?

In terms of Purchasing PP Nurses here earn less than those in the UK.

http://www.icn.ch/Flash/sew_wff_data_sum06.swf