As politicians pay is linked to that of civil servants I would expect that any cuts would also apply to them. They’re not so stupid as to exclude themselves from across the board cuts. Although there are many stupid people here that think they are stupid enough to do so!

Reg, do you not think that the government could lead from the front on this one… Go it alone first in taking cuts… Then they could. with good moral authority, ask others to follow?

A sure what wood we expect. there will be no change with this crowd . they are so bad that the other crowd are passing them out in the pools. that says a lot about them labour an all. but gilmore is going to u.s.a. in March u shoud have herd him on the radio yesterday all the people he is going to be meeting over there it was such a laugh

They didn’t go far enough with the cuts they took when they first came into government Cal, but that ship has now sailed. The problem they now face is, should they go it alone now and take further cuts on their own or wait for an agreement that includes everybody. I think the sensible thing to do is wait and go with the pay cuts that include everybody. If they take cuts now and then don’t have further cuts later when everyone is getting them you’ll still have eejits on here jumping up and down saying they’ve excluded themselves!

Waterford Crystal Employees’ pensions
disappeared, as company insolvent.

Ireland Inc. is insolvent, yet Bertie agus a chairde, like a unique Irish version of royalty, extract borrowed money to pay
Circa €150k pensions, which the population has to pay for.

No wonder The French stormed The Bastille!!

Reg, i hope you remember that comment, when you talk about apologies for the ‘Troubles’…

Direct Democracy in the workplace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xChL7jqXuKQ

It would be great to see an actuarial value on pensions and benefits so that the true value of public sector salaries is known. Including “sick” days which those in private sector do not have the luxury of taking.

Yes but thy where born more equal that the likes of doctors and nurses .so no wage cut for them

@ tax slave,
But sure there’s no nurses earning over 60k. Is there?

yes they are. now who were all big winners in the famous BENCH MARKINK/? that really broke this country. now let us start there.

Yup, that’s the main issue compadre, everyday shopping is getting dearer.

http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/food-and-drink-prices-down-over-6-per-cent-since-2008-retail-ireland-791893-Feb2013/

Paul,mortgages fuel electricity and gas?

But i thought you were all complaining because it was the lower paid 24/7′s that were being targeted. Now you’re complaining because these apparently lower paid 24/7′s have mortgages

im only talking about what dave oshea said nothing else

Paul the cost of shopping went down . But its the shop keepers bearing the loss . And many of them pumped there saving in to try and stay open . . . Rate . Water .rent. foc. Tax .all went up . Some of them have nothing left for them self at the end of the month

If they reduced my living expenses by 20% then cut my pay, I have been cut 23% so far, with no decrease in living cost, I already work 5 hours per week for no pay and get time off when it’s suitable to my employer,
A Prison Officer

@ bud61193

Leave it out. Prison officers are akin to hospital consultants when they look at their pay slips

Never mind the cosy swapping of schedules where sick days are taken to provide overtime for colleagues.

Frank, do your homework. Overtime was discontinued in the prison service since 2005, I love all your comments sounds like government spin to confused public support, RESEARCH PLEASE

Bang on

Spot on. Your comment should come as a footnote to EVERY article on the journal regarding public service pay cuts.

Whoever red thumbed the comment willbe rooted out and put against the wall first when the revolution starts.. ;-)

Why didn’t the national debt management agency, or whatever it’s called, buy the bonds at a major discount and take the benefit rather than the speculators? But in any case, there is a multiple of billions being wasted each year by government and public agencies that needs to be sorted . Hopefully the Euro collapse will sort that out. Otherwise we will never get out of the debt trap we’re in.

Myself & my husband said the same last nite. Hand the house keys to the bank & leave…seems like the only solution.

AVC’s are the way to go! I was in Saudi .. best place I ever lived! But that’s another story! LOL

@ tax slave ,

and so the answer is to pump even more money into an inefficient non productive public sector. Genius

No what i am saying is that if people had some spending money left . Less business would close down . But we are been sucked dry by the high cost of living and taxes

@ Tax slave,
So what’s your solution. Give public servants more money that they can spend and so save the Domestic economy ?

John, cutting low paid wont help the country recover, they spend most of their money in the local economy

Agree that doesn’t apply to the rest of us in the public service, we just feel we have taken the cuts, and enough is enough

Ahh yes Ted but they never for one minute suspected that the noose would be tightened at this level. Ohh no !

Add to that aib raising interest rates in the coming days, with the other lenders to follow shortly – ecb will start to raise theirs eventually and then it’s end game for many Irish mortgage holders. Brace yourselves.

You obviously don’t understand the tax system if you think earning less but paying less tax makes you better off.

Well belly_up he might not be a million miles off, when earning in the higher tax bracket an extra 10k on your salary is worth give r take €80 a week. So if you go from 40k to 80k you earn about an extra €160 a week.. now in most work places that jump in underlying salary cones with a huge jump in responsibility, Longer hours more stress etc etc. Ontop of that you will have people pointing at you saying he/she should pay more tax he earns more… I guess one has to find a balance especially in our system where earning anymore to give so much away and see it squandered just isn’t worth wasting your life with…

You obviously have no grasp of what ‘earning’ money involves. You must be a civil servant.

Ehh Wha?

Your having a laugh, going from 40k pay to 80k pay is only worth 160 Euro a week. What planet are you on. get some real figures and facts before posting dribble like that.

If you earn 40 k thats 769per week you would pay. 161 tax 607 net
If you earn 80k that’s €1538 per week !
You pay € 400 tax. €1137 net
It annoys me when I hear people moan your better of earning lower wage and pay less tax are you mad ? Ill take the 80 k every time

ah that’s ok us newly qualified teachers would be lucky to be earning half of that!

That was a typo, 60k I meant, 40k to 60k is a diff of €185, now 185 a week is not to be sniffed at.but What I’m saying is its a diminishing level of returns once you go on to the higher tax rate the government gets more of your pay than you do.. and your hours and responsibilities grow in multiples not exact positive to the work life balance..

@ David it all depends on circumstances, if your happy with more hours more travel less family/me time for the extra money thats your choice, or mine as it maybe, its not moaning its pointing out the fact that once you break the tax bracket you pay half and more of your money in tax. Also your tax figures are off take home on 40k for a single person in the private sector is €578. And around €950 on 80k.
I’m all for bringing payments inline with benchmarks and living standards, but it also has to be seen that the savings for the government tarketing cival servants at 60k won’t bring them in much money, what ever they cut them by they will only save half of as they already get half back in tax. Pay ceilings an performance based pay is the way forward imho.
(Disclaimer :p i am neither a public servant nor do I earn 60k)

the problem with that is some1 who has worked through all their service and is mabye making 60k gets a 10% pay cut. a bit unfair. 6000 to a person making 61000 is a big hit on top of 2 already. thats about another 500 a month. ive already lost 1200 a month. how is that fair????

Stephen good points, but there is nobody in nursing, gardai or fire service getting 60K+ salary who is not in a managerial position.

So managers earning 60k now earn 54k and the person on 59.9k loses nothing?

Sandra, exactly, it happens in industry all the time people get promoted and go from being hourly paid to being salaried. If this is truely about protecting frontline pay and services than lets do that and not managerial pay.

You know managers work on the front line too right? They do night duty etc?

Sandra could you clear something up for me, do shift working managers provide frontline services or do they provide managerial services to frontline workers?

@Sandra,

You’ve got the wrong idea of how these cuts would be implemented. If you earn say 65k and you take a 10% cut under this scheme then that 10% will come off your earnings above 60k. So instead of losing 6.5k a year and earning less than someone on 59k you’ll lose 500 a year. Not a big cut at all in comparison which will offer little savings.

Unless of course they go with a blanket 10% cut for all staff on all earnings which, while saving much more, will not be feasible as those on the frontline are already at breaking point.

Exactly Sandra.. Nighttime managers are responsible for the whole hospital! This is the “frontline” for managers!

@Jason if that’s the case then fine. I haven’t seen the proposals so don’t know what they are suggesting

It makes sense Dave, but doesn’t go far enough. Every mortgage in the country should be adjusted in accordance to what the property is actually worth right now. This obviously means that lenders take a big hit in the short term. However because people will automatically have more disposable income, this will invariably boost the economy again. People will start spending this income, therefore creating jobs, which will create demand for mortgages and personal loans etc, which ultimately means that the lenders start making money again. It all seems so simple, I mean what have we got to lose? It has to be better than the Japanese torture policies this crowd in power seem hellbent on pursuing.

Dave,
Over the past 4 and half years, I’ve been off work due to operations, 5 times. Usually for about 2 months and once for 5 months. Each time , we approached the mortgage company and they gave us interest only for the duration and beyond to let us get back on our feet again. We even had a 3 month mortgage holiday at one stage.
The company have helped us in any way that they could. We gave them all our details and it was sorted out in no time. Including right now. I’ve been off for 2 months.
I don’t understand why this isn’t the case for everyone. I read horror stories about families on the breadline. Why are they not being helped by their mortgage companies is beyond me.

Sorry Ailis, I accidentely gave up a thumbs up

Trouble with your comparison with the private sector is that in the public sector a person on 75k that is useless can only be handled the same way as a work demon on 25k. This would never happen in the private sector. Real performance based assessment is needed, then cut.

Like the private sector always operates you surely mean Buzz. When private sector wages started to increase the unions jumped on benchmarking for the public sector but now private sector wages have dropped they have gone very quiet about benchmarking haven’t they.

Pablo, Fingleton no more needs to be said,
Plenty in the private sector hiding their incompetences , while claiming big wages and perks , cope on
Agree to some extent that civil servants aren’t monitored for competency unlike nursing staff

Mrbuzz – re: mortgages I have to disagree, while no doubt some do have mortgages, many of our fine grey haired citizens have no or very small mortgages. As was pointed out on Matt cooper yesterday, people in Ireland have €100,000,000,000 in savings. It’s the 20,30 and 40 year olds who are feeling this depression.

@shay, fair enough, add ‘in my experience’ to my comment above, having worked in both sectors. Bear in mind however I was not a CEO in my private sector job, just a normal ‘worker’.

Keith you are so far off with your ratio… Or maybe not did we have 60,000 guards on duty for those visits because there were just under 2000 army either on the ground, on call, ceremonial etc

I think you will find dave that I am bang on target with the ratio, and by the way since when do we even have 60,000 gardai in the whole force. Please look into it before you make another ill informed comment thank you

@keith.. That was my point exactly.. I was on duty that day and the total number of Defence forces personnel that were directly or indirectly involved in the two visits was a little under 2000, so by your reckoning that woud mean 40,000 guards( 60,000 was bad maths on my my behalf) for a ratio of 20:1 and in my reckoning there are less than 15,000 serving officers and I can assure you that 750 military men and woman is a little light on each day.

@dave, what I’m saying is for one garda there was 20 soldiers, but yet the garda bill came to €39,000,000 and the defence forces bill came to €1,000,000 even though the army where out 24/7 and the gardai were working shifts, I remember seeing all those army tents at the back of the airport 24/7 where the troops stayed for the duration unlike the gardai

@Keith.. oooops sorry . picked it up wrong

@dave no worries buddy

If you go on with that attitude, you’ll probably get you way. There will be no cuts in pay but there will be cuts in numbers and therefore services

I hope so!

So you want poor services and less people in employment.

Off coarse not! I was referring to the strong stance!

The labour force has already been cut with more coming…skeleton staffing everywhere.. the frontline is treading water to stay a float.. but we do our best in providing safe quality care!

People don’t get paid according to what they percieve to be their worth.

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” Albert Einstein

This is about our lives, our children, our society and our country and it does count and should be counted!

Policy’s for sick leave have existed in every place I’ve worked in the HSE. We have always had to explain sick leave and certify if longer than 2 days. I had a day recently thanks to norvo virus and after being sent home ( I dragged myself in to work – was not aware what was brewing) got a call from occupational health checking I was actually sick!! Admittedly it was a friday. That was after projectile vomiting on a ward round! I’d a back to work interview on the Monday. It’s always been this way. I’d major surgery a few years back and was off 3 weeks in total! Added bonus was being rang almost every day asking when was I coming back to work from my manager. However I have had a situation where a colleague went off on “work related stress” for 9 months refused to engage with occ health/management and no body was allowed “talk” to her… She left behind 6 months of backlog in a post she had been in as many months!! Eventually she came back to work…. Only to go out again on yes “work related stress”. She came back to her cock up sorted by people like me. Eventually she got what she wanted a “move” to another area…

Between myself and my wife we earn 59,000pa combined ,
and believe me , it is heartbreaking , at the end of each week we have nada , nothing not a €1 , last Friday morning I had to borrow money from my dad in order to put diesel in the car just so as I could get the child to the creche and get myself to work ,
The normal hard working Joe publics are the ones heading for the poverty scrap heap , we give everything and getting nothing back

Is it though? I may be wrong but don’t a family with 3/4 children on social welfare get 38,000 + free medical? This may include children allowance. Bear in mind that 38,000 is a net pay and not taxed. How much would 54,000 be after tax? And wouldn’t we have to allow for travel costs to work whether they be fuelling a car, public transport, pay parking etc and possibly childcare. I mention these because a family on social welfare wouldn’t have these overheads where as a working family would. I’m just pointing out that 54,000 doesn’t necessarily mean you’d be rolling in it and no my partner and I are nowhere near a 54,000 salary!

My husband and I have an annual gross income of 46k. We manage, we can go on holidays every year. We look after ourselves well. All week there has been loads comments from 24/7/365 staff on here stating that they didn’t want the lower paid workers to be hit. NOW they’re complaining that people over 60k will be cut. The government cant win. Considering one salary is more than my whole family income I find it hard to listen to this BS. If you are making over 60k and struggling to live you’ve obviously made some poor decisions, this is nobody’s fault but your own. Karolyn, some people like to go to work rather than claim benefits, I wouldn’t be putting the two scenarios against each other.

Yes opinion but do you have a mortgage taken out between 2000 & 2008

Ah opinion8d, do u have a 2006 mortgage of 300,000 like myself though? We’re 3/4 of our income goes to our mortgage and that’s on interest only? You clearly don’t because there is barely enough food, let alone a holiday and if u do what’s your secret?Your reference to me about “some people want to work” makes no sense to me? Don’t most people want to work?….. Ah ignorance is pure bliss…

The highest non managerial grade in nursing has a salary on 47,497, where are you getting your figures?

INMO!

http://www.inmo.ie/salary_information

You will see the highest salary is for a Senior Dual Qualified Nurse/Midwife at 47,497 so it is not included

Just salary. Yes!

What is also being tabled is an increase workweek of 5 hours which is another 6-10% pa and loss of top increment..

Adding it up now 14%+10.6%+6%= 30.6%+increase PRSI
+
Increase : +electricity+Home heating+property tax+health insurance (optional), septic tank charges+increase variable morgage rates+ future water charges.possible decrease in childrens allowance… = 180,000 public workers in morgage arrears and climbing!

40 hour week for all, why not , forget adding 5 hours , just 40 hrs for all ,

Michael,
I think the point made earlier, was that this kite flying exercise is to cut salaries over €60,000 pa.
None of the salaries you’ve mentioned is above €60k. So they won’t be touched if this proposal is implemented.

It’s very difficult to follow you around this article, could you stay still for a moment and stop confusing salary and gross pay?

Point well taken! 60,000+ salary.. to many assumptions on Salary v.s gross.. I’ll have to wait to hear the outcomes to make proper judgement.

i seriously doubt they will be cutting salaries at 60k. more like earnings at 60k.and to answer pierce’s question about frontline managers. yes they are frontline workers. i’m in the prison service. in charge of a wing with 140 prisoners. and i’m also in charge of 8 staff. thats what i get to deal with 140 prisoners. and i do the exact same shifts as the staff and i work in the exact same places. that is fact. not the ration of 1:1 like we’ve heard so many times. almost 20:1.

Premium payments are calculated on the basis of salary. Seems like a pretty clear choice.

1. Adjust premiums to private sector levels and leave salaries alone.
2. Cut salaries and leave premium payments where they are.

1 Hurts the low paid shift worker 2. Hurts the 8 to 5 worker regardless of salary

Pierce, if you cut basic , you also cut premium which is off course based on basic
So 2 does not effect only 9-5 workers

Use the reply button! You are making me dizzy!

Michael, use the reply button….

Too funny Sandra!

PLEASE use the reply button!

Michael I agree staff that do shifts should not be cut, you’re not doing yourself any favours with your comments though..

I usually don’t refer to indivdual comments out of respect and dignity Pablo so please do the same!

In conclusion systemic oppresion through austerity in Irish society is unacceptable!

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” Albert Einstein

You’ve got problems man

No time!