Just to set the record straight on the public sector sick pay debate. As a Firefighter/Paramedic I do not and never have received full pay for uncertified OR certified sick leave. If I am absent from work I do get the basic daily rate which is about minimum pay. Try working 15, sometimes 16 hour nights with people that are carrying a multitude of airborne illnesses and diseases and see how hard it is to remain 100% fit and healthy all year around. Quite often we have to come into work with an illness in order to receive full pay often to the displeasure of colleagues who then run the risk of picking up that illness. We just can’t afford to be sick.
Once again the media lump all the public sector into the one category and everyone else is misinformed as a result. I’m tired of this lazy journalism.

#1
Yippee! Another chance to slate public sector workers and blame them for everything from the death of our economy through to the theft of Shergar

Better again, there should be no uncertified sick pay in public or private sector. Too many paid hangovers. If your sick you don’t work therefore shouldn’t expect to be paid. If your Really sick, you’ll get a note from the doctor and only then should ya receive sick pay

if you were patriotic and idiotic enough to hand over the household charge, well done the lads in anglo, and german and french bondholders are glad you can afford this and are now caught in the web of being forced to pay it higher and higher for the rest of yer lives and the lives of ur kids,grandkids etc…….hogan you aint getting a cent outta me i have no bins,water,streetlights,parks near me have to fork out for the refuse and private water scheme and the road tax is suppose to pay for the roads so what exactly does the 100euro do for me……..when anyone can answer that then maybe people will comply

Need to distinguish from the front line services such as nurses etc. of course a nurse will get sick more due to the fact they are dealing daily with infections!!!!!
It’s the likes of office staff and teachers!
Especially the high level of sick among teaches considering they have too much holidays and finish work early in the day….don’t use the excuse they are ‘exposed’ to sick children.!!! Look at crèche staff who are in close physical contact with young kids but don’t take as much sick days…why…because they don’t get paid for sick and are not protected by the unions!!
I think even 3 months fully paid off sick is still too much

It is intrinsically wrong to deprive local authorities of funds ‘cos of people not paying Household Charge. Why should those who paid have to suffer for lawbreakers ? What would TD’s say if their expense would not be paid because other TD’s are cheating ?

If the government had thought it through properly there would have been a lot more people who might have coughed up the household charge by now.
The amateurish way it was implemented was, and is, farcical.
Any organised, legitimate and properly constituted body who want to receive money from people does it by sending out a bill, or tax demand, to the person who is required to pay.
The Revenue do it, the ESB, Eircom and others do it.

If the local or central administrators of this illegitimate charge cannot go about the job properly then they don’t deserve to be handed money. End of. Neither should they demand penalties for non-payment if they can’t be bothered to ask in the first instance. If payment is nor forthcoming after a proper request for it, then that is a different matter entirely.

And don’t call those who have not paid up “cheats”. This charge is not legitimate until it is properly administered. It is a bastard-child of a knee-jerk reacting, useless, cobbled-up coalition government as it runs round like a headless chicken.

@ item 5, maybe if the local councils actually did some work people might be more willing to pay up. iv’e spent the last 3 years trying to get our council to clear up a lane that has become a dumping ground and drinking place, so far they have done zilch, the lane get worse by the day it is overgrown and a danger to people trying to pass up or down it due to poor visibility because of the over grown bush’s and grass, some day a young child will run out in front of a car and be killed only then will we see all the big wigs appearing and lamenting “how sad it is and how it must never happen again. meanwhile there were 8 council ‘gardeners’ attending to tubs and hanging baskets out side the council offices. 2 sitting in the lorry, 2 leaning on shovels, 2 with watering cans and the other 2 with clipboards writing down something. no wonder they ‘haven’t got the staff’.