Don’t be so pesky! The state will determine (in a fair manner, according to your needs) whether you need a hospital or not. Don’t forget, there are more needy people than you out there. Don’t be so selfish!

They most likely are leaving, cbythec. Be mad not to…

I’m not angry at all, I’m a very peaceful guy. I simply love expressing my opinion and having fun doing it :-)

Can I have a hug too?

The state will give you a hug, but only if it deems it needed

The state will not give you a kick you in the arse and demand you be thankful for it

Argh, the state will kick you in the arse and demand you pay for it

As a matter of fact, I’m so optimistic about the future of this country that I want to leave more of it for the others, so as a personal sacrifice I’ll be leaving this country after I graduate. And don’t forget, that this is all in the name of leaving more of this great country for the others who decide to stay here.

Can you say cradle to grave state fail?

Wait for it now, more A&E departments will be deemed to be “unsafe” and closed because there aren’t enough staff to run them.
There won’t be enough staff because the HSE and Department of Health are making no attempt to replace the staff they know are retiring. (There are plenty of fully-trained nurses in the country who would love a job but can’t because of the recruitment ban).

James Reilly Pictured above is the man pictured above I hold responsible for ALL the LIES that was about Roscommon A&E and false information to close our A&E last July he is on record stating that it was unsafe he also stated that the The hospital was 4 times higher for fatalities he also stated that HIQA recommended that it be closed By his lies we lost our A&E and in turn we got a URGENT CARE CENTRE 12hours a day but our UCC cannot take ambulance assist patients only walk in patients ALL OTHERS HAVE TO GO TO GALWAY and on route ambulance may be diverted to Castlebar /Sligo/Mullingar because Galway are so overpacked….
It has been proved that The figures are totally wrong and it has been proved and the Head of HIQA STATED THAT she stated at the time it would be unsafe to CLOSE ROSCOMMON A&E She stated on Friday last on Shannonside Norther Sound (the local radio) that she did not suggest that Roscommon should be closed
James Reilly has lied to the people of Roscommon and to the people of IRELAND on very serious issues too many times since taking office…..
The figures he stated were false and have been proved to be false James Reilly’s recommendation stating HIQA RECOMMENDED THE CLOSURE IS also FALSE and by JAMES REILLY’s lies he has put so many people’s lives at risk… He has destroyed the good name of ROSCOMMON HOSPITAL and the good name of the STAFF
ALL THIS GOVERNMENT HAS DONE TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND US LIE and destroy this Country more and more just so the can seem big men to Germany and France but I think the people if IRELAND will prove that We are being RUN BY THE BIGGEST LIARS AND CHEATS FINE GAEL AND LABOUR

We need all the hugs we can get and here are some back (((((((( hugs)))))))))

Worker’s paradise fail

Agree that Croke Park agreement is bad for the country. If all public servants were to take a 5.5% pay cut, instead of having increments protected (at a cost of €250 million), it would be unnecessary to cut health and education services and welfare payments to the vulnerable…

1/3 of the country are on medical cards. 30%+ are the “vulnerable”? This country is such a great success story!

Calm calm Dave. Or I’ll have to call nurse. Thing is, if you actually take the trouble to find out what it is actually like for families dealing with chronic illness and/or disability, you might stop and think twice before spouting meaningless statistics. For many people out there it is really tough…

Damn, Michael, now that you made me think about it I’m surprised that 30%+ people in this country are disabled – mentally. Yep, they do need medical cards!

Nurse is on the way. Nanny has the keys…

Michael, what nurse? There are no nurses left, there is only the nanny :-)

“If all public servants were to take a 5.5% pay cut” Hold on there Michael, I’m a frontline HSE Public Servant who earned €27K last year, the banks and developers got us into the position we now find ourselves in yet you somehow feel that I should take another cut of almost €1500. Why? I already have taken cut after cut, I pay my taxes (although I refuse to pay this Property Tax), I’m not highly paid, I’ve seen hundreds of my colleagues go and never be replaced, their work shared out amoung those left.
In short, I’m pissed off taking abuse working hard serving the public for sweet shag all while armchair experts who haven’t a clue what its like to work in a hospital these days preach to everyone else about what any easy life I have and how much of a pay cut I should take. Try practicing what you preach and do my job while living on what I earn before you decide to offer to cut the pay of me and my colleagues. Did it ever occur to you that we may actually earn our wages? Someday you may need and be glad of us Michael.

Hey Brian. Greetings colleague. Yer very presumptuous. I’m a staff nurse. On the front line. Work in the voluntary sector on Dept of Health grade. Very well paid. I can afford a pay cut. Happy to, if it means someone less well off gets the benefit. Don’t know any nurses on 27k. Unless that’s your take-home pay…

Fair play to you Michael, and I guess you’re right I didn’t see that coming. To answer your question I never said I was a nurse, there are more frontline staff than nurses, but since you brought it up I do know for a fact that I earned more than some of my agency nurse colleagues last year, we happened to compare wage scripts one day and I was a little shocked to find that I earned slightly more than an agency nurse, we both did flat weeks. I assume this will have changed with the European ruling on agency staff wages.
My point was if you are, or feel you are very well paid and can afford a cut, then thats your business, but to assume the same for everyone else and call for a cut for everyone is presumptuous, to put it mildly. Something like €1500 may not seem like a lot to you but it damn well is to me and thousands of others like me. OK you’re a nurse, maybe you don’t know what its like to work in a hospital these days, maybe you do, you feel you’re well paid but not everyone is so fortunate. I spoke to an A&E nurse a few weeks ago who described looking after 20 patients even though the regs say a ratio of one nurse to 6 patients, she said she was terrified but people like her earned her wages. Theres a lot more like her.

Hi Michael. I’m just wondering if, as a staff nurse in the voluntary sector, you had the pension levy and the 2010 pay cut applied to your salary? These are the reason that a lot of frontline workers are struggling financially.

Would you believe Sara I forgot about that, and probably a lot of other things too. I Don’t begrudge Michael, or anyone else, the fact that he feels he’s well paid and can afford to take a pay cut. What I object to I guess is that he somehow feels he has the right to speak for every other frontline worker in calling for a cut. We’re not all as fortunate as him and the vast majority of us have already been cut to the bone, the little we get we damn well earn.
Michael I stand by what I said. Just as I don’t know what its like to work in your job in the voluntary sectory I’m sure you don’t know what its like to work in one of our busier hospital wards or A&E Departments, a Centre of Excellence, these days. The cutbacks are biting, the employment moratorium has had a devasting affect as had the amount of essential staff leaving, those leaft must do the extra work, assaults and abuse of staff are commonplace. To say morale has hit an all time low is an understatement, there simply isn’t any anymore, finding members of staff crying in corners or sluice rooms is not unusual. This is just the tip of the iceberg – and despite it everyone still tries to help the patients but it has to have a knock on effect so please understand why I get upset when someone volunteers that I’ll take another pay cut. We’ve been cut enough.

I completely agree, Brian. I don’t know what michaels personal circumstances are but I know that I certainly can’t afford to lose another penny. I am a nurse and my husband is a garda. Since the pension levy was introduced we have lost approx €2000 a month take home pay between both salaries. We have already defaulted in our mortgage and, with young children, that is a scary situation to be in. And, before any public sector haters suggest that we were “greedy” and took out a mortgage that we couldn’t afford, we were well able to afford our mortgage repayments before these savage cuts. But we have now lost more than the equivalent of a repayment every month.

I’m lucky Sara I don’t have a huge mortgage and only a few years to go on it but as someone else pointed out before, when you bought your house you paid the market value. Thats what a house cost then, you didn’t look around for an expensive one, probably for one you could afford in fact, just like everyone else back then. Put simply back then the average house cost a fortune.
I am so sorry to hear of your situation, I won’t insult you to say I know how you feel. I don’t. But there are some things you don’t have to experience to know you don’t want to – and this is one. I know there are thousands of people out there in desperate situations, and this Public vs Private divide, this “I don’t have it so I don’t want you to have it either” achieves nothing. All it does is distract everyone from what caused this mess, not the Private Sector, not the Public Sector, not nurses or hospitals or the HSE. What caused it was the Banks and the property developers and a failed political system, now we’re all expected to pay for it while they walk away and many still live the high life.

Hi Brian. Thanks very much for your kind words. I completely agree with what you are saying. The people who caused this mess are not frontline public sector workers or those in the private sector. However, public sector workers have, for whatever reason, become the scapegoats for the mess the government have made of this country. We are easy targets because the government pay our wages and it seems that a lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon and screaming for our pay to be cut again. We are not responsible for the economic situation in this country and I think it’s time we were left alone. For a change.

I can empathise with you both. I wasn’t, nor would I claim to speak for anyone but myself. Please read my original comment again. I was unemployed for 9 months before I got my present job. Made redundant a year after buying at top of market. I have a biiig mortgage until I’m 70. Don’t have the privilege of a defined benefit pension. Voluntary and private sector workers tend to be in defined contribution schemes. You may not realise that the voluntary sector provides services for some of the most vulnerable and challenged members of our “society”. Some of the service users can inflict serious damage upon themselves and those charged with their care. Staff in tears? Been there, done that.

What’s interesting about this is a pervading sense of isolation, but also division between people who ought to be standing together to campaign for a better society. There are huge inequalities that have been made so much worse by budget 2012. My work alerts me to these realities every day. While I agree that it is a struggle getting by, it is also very clear that many people who rely on the heath and welfare budgets are being crucified. An example: Although the cut to disability allowance for under 24s was reversed, the means test for family income supplement no longer disregards carers’ allowance. This may result in weekly income cuts of over €100 for low income families supporting chronically ill or disabled people. Imagine that…

Michael I’m genuinely sorry for your situation, as I said to Sara I really can’t imagine what its like to have something like that over your head – and don’t want to. As for the pension of people like me and my colleagues, its a joke. Yes I have a pension that I pay for, and then I’m taxed for the privilege of doing this. I honestly believe I will never see my pension, or when I get there it’ll be so bad as to be almost worthless.
Please believe me when I say I have some appreciation of what some of the voluntary and private sector can do, I have had some interaction with both. I agree totally when you speak of a pervading sense of isolation and a division between people, I think its isolation that the Public service tends to feel when we constantly hear others and the media make ridiculous generalisations. We don’t all get long holidays, we don’t all get huge wages, we don’t all sit around drinking coffee. Most of us get statutory annual leave, what little wages we get we damn well earn and coffee breaks are 15 minutes – if you can get them. I never heard of privilage days untill I read about them in the media yet I’ve been told several times I get them all the time, as for “force majeure” days, we did an ad-hoc survey in my hospital and nobody knows of anyone who ever recieved one of these yet the media would have us believe they’re common. The reality is very different, we simply don’t get these days off, or days off at Christmas to go shopping (I heard that one too) I have heard of people who, entitled to compassionate leave, have difficulty getting that. It happened to me, the day after burying my father I got a phone call from my manager to say I was needed in and they’d “owe me” the compassionate leave. This is the reality not reported.
Michael when you say you wouldn’t claim to speak for anyone but yourself you did clearly say:
“If all public servants were to take a 5.5% pay cut, instead of having increments protected (at a cost of €250 million), it would be unnecessary to cut health and education services and welfare payments to the vulnerable”
I’m sorry but you did clearly bundle “all public servants” into this, maybe it was an oversight but its these things that make us Public Servants feel isolated and I guess, to be fair, maybe get our back up a little. When we hear the same things said in the media, when they generalise and say that “all Public Servants” pay should be cut, but give examples of the few who earn hundreds of thousands to whip up public fervour, now that scares us.

I appreciate what you’re saying, Michael, but you didn’t answer my question. Clearly, as a member of the voluntary sector on The Dept of Health pay scale, you were subject to neither the pension levy nor the pay cut in 2010. People like to forget (or maybe ignore) that our salaries have been significantly reduced. I have lost 30% of my salary. As for our pensions, I pay over €500 per month into my pension. This is not a luxury. I am paying for it. Dearly. So, as your salary is obviously higher than mine, kindly refrain from making suggestions as to what you think should be inflicted on my colleagues and I. Thank you.

Still got nanny issues Dave…

Yes Michael, I was traumatized by a nanny as a child, so now I’m always looking for a sweet, caring, fair, compassionate, from everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their needs type of nanny :-). There is nothing I want more that the state holding my hand every step of the way. It is so sweet!

I know, I know. Marx is inclined to give one indigestion, ulcers and worse if swallowed whole. As nanny always said, chew 72 times…