It would good to see more of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMbo2Gwa6WY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

well said michael but remember people there are people on here trying to divide the public and private sector workers this is a case of us against them, the political class in this country have destroyed this country and now the divide and conquer tactics are alive and well from the political class.

Dermot, since when did politicians become a ‘class’ !?? They are public representatives, bad and all as they may be

Most of them ain’t working class

Politicians are a class unto themselves since they started spawning more politicians and foisting them upon our “tickets”. There are a large number of career politicians who’ve never experienced the cut and thrust of real life and a staggering amount are from political dynasties making them even more isolated from the people they represent. A few years teaching does not break the cycle I’m afraid.

how right you are

Nobody has to do overtime, but if they don’t the system may not function , so reducing overtime rates maybe self defeating
Reducing Sunday pay is unfair as these shifts are part of their duty and compulsory , it will encourage increase sick leave in my opinion

Your wrong. I have to do overtime. I’m in the army and I don’t get paid for overtime.

this one is for David this is going to get nasty i hear they have been training the army for riots is this true.

It would be wrong to give operational information on here. However it’s common knowledge that the army regularly does riot training as part of its preparations for any possible event at home or abroad.

Shay, doctors have to do overtime. Ni choice.

I wouldn’t even have given that answer! Nobodies business what the Army is up to.

Jack & David selling out their most vulnerable members , yet again, in return for a status quo of their cosy relationships with government, their fat salaries and places on state boards… Surprise surprise

But you get time in leu and you retire after 20 years service with a state pension so plead the poor mouth somewhere else…… A standing army in a neutral country????? How much is army equesteren sector costing taxpayers ??? For what, to get on rte once a year at the RDS horseshow??
Why do I see army personal still in Castlebar barracks even though it was supposed to be closed???
Are the Russians about to invade us on the west coast anytime soon???
FCA barracks all over the country serving what purpose???? At what cost??
Army cadets getting university degrees and masters on very relevant topics such as philosophy???? At what cost???
And as the banks are shut of a Sunday what is it exactly that the average army person does of a Sunday??????

Riots by whom??? the sheep that make up this population????

Agree, doctors and army may have to do overtime, sorry my error,

Don’t worry, as long as there’s fluoride in the water there won’t be riots.

I don’t know where you get your info but your wrong.
Firstly I didn’t give poor mouth I just disputed an incorrect statement.
Army don’t get a pension after 20 years. Older soldiers were entitled to a part pension after 21 years this is due to the nature of the work and was to give something to a soldier who can no longer fulfil the strict criteria. Nowadays pensions are the same as any PS and are only payable on reaching pension age. There are still a few on old system but not many
As for your statement on if we need an army that is for our government to answer not me.
What we do on a Sunday or any other day is not something I can say here.

I also do on average more than 50 hours a week.
Just to answer that.
I don’t know what happens in mayo. Or what happens in the FCA/reserve defence forces.
I just do what I’m told.

Sorry I red-thumbed you when I saw fair deal. It’s a very unfair deal.

Looks like the compulsory redundancy and aggressive pursuit of dismissal of deadwood might save the day. It’s one thing voting for a cut that doesn’t affect you but voting for a measure that might leave one unemployed is another thing. Somebody on the remaining negotiating unions has to have agreed to this one. The only people who get paid less than 65k to be hit long term are shift workers apart from increment freezes that are relatively short. I appreciate people need the extra an increment brings but its not a cut. All the while IBEC and their ilk are laughing at us all and rubbing their hands at the prospect of cutting their wage bill on the back of public sector cuts. The fat cats are winning again or so they think it just might not be so simple when the details of entire document emerge.

Have to agree with you Mary. The last Croke Park deal was basically a contract, which this government has broken, they then put a gun to the various unions heads. Sign or else. That isn’t a deal its a joke, especially when several of the unions have walked out.

and unelected at that

Thanks Frank.

I don’t know how much they will save but personally, as a front line worker, caring for others, working every second weekend and midweek, being away from my family and home 7 nights a fortnight, I am set to lose €400 a month with these proposed cuts to Sunday premiums and unsocial hours. Bloody ridiculous.

You can submit a letter stating that you refuse to have any of your sub given to a political party.I believe the amount is small but if enough done it,Labours finances would take a hit.

Very true Jenny, hope people take note on principal and stop that payment.

Jenny lets get signing like u say if enough do it might make a difference to the Labour Purse.

I done it 2years ago James.

Teachers,the biggest whingers of them all

Sure Easter is only around the corner.. The annual winge fest for those poor disgruntled teachers….

I fully agree with you that this shouldn’t be a public V private debate. And I fully agree that the bankers & politicians are to blame here, have no doubt about that.

However as any small business owner in this country knows we are being strangled by government costs, and part of that is public pay. Every year I have to pay the government €8,000 in rates and another €1,000 for my license to operate. For that I receive a piece of paper and whatever water I drink at work, probably less than 100 litres per year. Other costs from semi states such as what the ESB/Bord Gais charge businesses for the same electricity that you get at home are also extraordinarily high- the average wage in the ESB at the Ringend power station is €87,000 which goes to explain why. businesses pay so much for power.

All these extraordinarily high charges and costs are money that I could spend on employing people but as much as I’d love to I can’t afford to as I’m being strangled by sky high taxes, for which I receive sweet dam all. Ireland is still one of the most uncompetitive countries in Europe in which to do business and the economy WILL NOT RECOVER until the costs of doing business come down.

Other areas also need to be looked at such as government spending. We still have a situation where the governemt is spending €30m a year to RENT prefabs for schools, a ridiculous situation. I am sure there are lots more like it too.

wood like to know what you have to do to stop any of your subs going to eamon an the lads. also could you stop your fees by 50%.

Salaries just over 65k will be reduced to 65k (so only those over 70k will get hit by 5% reduction)

So does that mean someone on €70,000 will be cut by 5.5% on the whole €70,000

Exactly…… its mad. 2 blokes sitting beside each other… One on 65k one on 64.999…..65k bloke drops 3.5k

Where did you get the 70k…. is the next number not 80k

Will the pay cut be pro rata? i.e. if you have 2 people working along side each other doing the same job but one is working part time and the other full time, will the full-time person be hit more?

@michael it will probably be an average figure taken from the last 3 years.

some of ye will have to work 39 hours a week………..he’ll need ye’er 30 days holidays!

Anto, it’s interesting to me that the unions except that frontline staff should do 39 hours while background staff should do 37, thereby maintaining better conditions
And strange that low pay shift workers take home is affected, while low paid 9-5 isn’t

Knob!

“Knob” comment was for Finian!!

Martin they should show their disgust and change unions. Imagine Siptu like the Green Party and the PDs .

Michael we must have been when we voted, now We’er a different type of mad but once bitten as the saying goes. Roll on the local elections and then the General. Oh it will be so Sweet.

And sitting beside Brian Hayes, very cosy alright.

Fair enough Jenny. I am not making a call on the equity or otherwise of the situatuon the only point I was trying to make is that the power to decide these things does not lie in this country. Everybody on here is angry and bothered but if you genuinely look at it if every public servant went on strike in the morning to protest the deal would it change anything? The answer is probably no because our lenders will probably say “so what ?”. However if people came out and said we will allow reduncany’s in non frontline areas and allow outsourcing in areas where it is benificial then perhaps the cuts to the frontline could be avoided.

Gerry that is spot on.

Yes we are all in it together: the private sector pays the taxes, the public sector receives them. The public sector keeps its increments (boo hoo no longer) the private sector gets redundancies.

3,000 job losses in education since 2009. Worse than redundancies as no statutory redundancy pay given. That’s public sector by the way.

The public sector buys the services and goods the private sector sells Eric. What do you you think would happen if 300k people (not including their families) stopped buying goods and services? Yes, you wouldn’t have a job thats what, wouldn’t have to worry about tax then eh?

We’re all in this together? Don’t make me laugh,where’s my Croke Park deal? And it’s a barefaced lie to say there were redundancies in education,there were plenty of early retirements and golden handshakes though,and jobs correcting state exam papers

Lol @eric de red and do the public sector, mainly frontline do anything to receive these “taxes”? Oh yes, they save lives, clean up bodies off the roads, deal with the $cum, put their own lives at risk to protect ours! That’s right they do the jobs that nobody else wants to do! They deserve every penny!

Read what I said Gaius. I said there were job losses, not redundancies. Through rises in the pupil-teacher ratio, cuts to home-school liaison posts, cuts to Special Needs posts, cuts to language support, cuts to DEIS schools teacher allocationa and making Guidance counsellors part of the schools’ teacher allocations, there have been 3,000 job losses in primary and secondary education in this country.

The last time I looked a my wages it said that Ipaid tax, usc, prsi , pension, health insurance. I don’t understand when some fools say the private sector pay your wage by paying tax. Jayus do they really think that Guards, Nurses, Firefighters/ Paramedics, Prisoner Officers, Teachers and the Defence Force pay nothing and then go around scratching our arses.

Im a frontline worker and i assure you this is the last time SIPTU will represent me

Your sarcasm needs to be more pronounced Mr. Murphy, you’re coming across as a Jack O’Connor fan, which I’m sure you’re not!

Yes Mr Finn your correct, I must work harder on my sarcasm. Thank you for your attention.

Christ you sound so well informed … Not…. As much as we all respect Gardai & Nurses, they CANT function efficiently without a support structure of lay staff in admin, engineering, general operatives etc. you dont have a clue . I suppose your another one who ridicules the public service but never applied once for a job in same. Oh yeah, you need qualifications dont you !

Goes to a vote fur the unions who stayed in the talks.

Your right because, lying down with “Welcome” on your back achieves so much doesn’t it?

No Jenny but do you think that the people who fund our deficits will bother too much either way? The cuts are coming regardless what happens and dealing with that fact and trying to influence outcomes seems to look a lot better than bluster and rage. Anger is like trying to hurt somebody by drinking poison yourself

Since the crash happened what influence have the ordinary worker/person in this country got? Our so called leaders do not listen to us and why should they.We’ve given them no reason.They told us at the last election it would be “new politics”,all we got was the same Circus but just with different Clowns.

John, frontline can’t accept this, we take cuts to our take home pay while everyone else doesn’t , sorry this is unacceptable,
There is nothing in this agreement to suggest proper reform of the civil service, if anything it maintains the status quo at the expense of frontline staff

Naomi Kleins “The Shock Doctrine” springs to mind.

I fund my own deficits John.
I object to paying someone elses.
Why doesn’t that bother you?

Truly the shock doctrine is a favourite in Ireland…Anglo deal: 4am, prom night an all-nighter at a couple of hours notice, the legislation produced a few minutes before it was voted on, croke park another all-nighter…surprised they don’t just get the army out and be done with it…or is that scheduled for after they force the gardaí to get a bad dose of the blue flu?

The country is broke,either the public sector take a pay cut or redundancy,they’re your two choices

@ John. Yes, the austerity is driven by troika and rightly so. Our gombeen elected reps haven’t the balls to bring these absolutely necessary changes to the table and therefore need to be told to do it or else! I know it is difficult on ALL sectors of employed persons here but better this than our children’s servitude for life also. I think it’s a sacrifice worth making especially if it teaches us all how to really really think about who we want/what type of TD/Government we want in the next election. I know I will ask hard questions at the door next time. No more laughing and cajoling, it’ll be ten pertinent questions and go from there! We need ballsy politicians who love their country and it’s people and not just their own pensions and perks!

Niall, you too should be against this agreement, if accepted it will prevent real restructuring of the civil/ public service
It will also alienate frontline staff, and led to social unrest without reform

Didn’t I read recently on the journal that 40% of private sector workers are looking at a pay increase this year? Whereas 100% public sector are looking at a pay cut of some sort this year.

If your generalizing Niall well then all those in the private sector should have to face a 60%tax because they are the ones who solely caused our economic crash (see what I did there, generalizing Niall) Just to inform you I’m in the nasty public sector I work 42.5 hrs a week I get paid for 39 the 3.5 hrs I get back at my employers convenience I get 20 days holidays a year I don’t get any of them convenience days, half days or shopping days, life of a Dublin firefighter/paramedic. Can you point out what sacrifice and extra effort you’ve made?

Private sector worker here! Since 2009 I’ve taken a paycut of €8,000 per year. Screwed! But had no choice, either that or join the dole Q.

Oh and my gross on 2009 was €36,000, now I’m on €28,000. Just in case anyone thought I was a lucky sod.

Tara, Its never nice when someone gets a pay cut as you well know, but by your infered logic, if you got docked by €8000 then other people should also get docked? This is despite most PS employees have had a massive increase of work load.

Is it possible that your employment was in a industry badly affected by drop in sales or work?

Also a recent survey by IBEC said that 39% of private sector will increase wages this year and 60% will freeze them. Therefore 1% of private sector companies plan to cut wages.

Public sector is being screwed, especially the health, gardai and teachers.

I was actually replying to cargos comment on private sector pay increases. Not all of us in private sector are laughing all the way to bank, just like all Public sector aren’t. That’s the point I was making and I apologise for not making that clear. There is too much private V public sector bashing going on when really most of us are in same boat when it comes to keeping the wolves from the door. We have come to a pathetic stage in this country where we’re been told we’re lucky to have a job! Really? And are we not entitled to a certain standard of living where we can pay all our bills and have a little left over to spend on our economy! Not any more it appears. Doors on retail units are shutting daily in this country adding more taxpayers to the dole Q’s but this seems to be ok with the powers that be! Idiots!! The lot of them. Social welfare is about to implode. Then what?

“a recent survey by IBEC”. Haaa, haaaa, very good! Btw I work in the private sector, and believe me you don’t want to be at the mercy of those philanthropists. I have had static pay since 2008 and withdrawal of certain benefits.

Tara I can empathise completely with you. I see firsthand on a daily basis how badly people in the private sector are affected by this recession. I don’t normally jump on the public sector bandwagon although I am one. I am sick of being ridiculed because of my employer. I do love my work and there is a sense of satisfaction knowing I have eased somebody’s burden at the end of my working day. I truly understand how hard the private sector have it between redundancies, enforced shorter working weeks and employers taking advantage of the recession to employ people at a much cheaper rate. I’m not going to talk about cuts to my salary (I’m on the low end of the scale) because it enrages the public. I know I’m fortunate to have a job and there are so many who don’t. It just needs to be noted that most public sector are simply surviving at this stage.

Pay frozen since 2008?? I assume that means no cuts either??? Lucky sod!!

IBEC only represent about 10% of employers, mainly banks and semi state, while SIPTU represent less than 25% of workers, the vast majority in the public sector. 2 sides of the same coin.

Yup, Lucky me. Only USC, increased prsi(for no benefit), increases in vat etc., and cost of living, and a pile more levys and taxes on the way.

My mate regularly talks about an imminent increase in pay early this year as well as a bonus in March. No clues needed – He obviously works in the private sector. The only “bonus” I looked forward to was, as a teacher, S&S money twice per year in March and July – but that it is no more. However, all I ever did with it was pay an exorbitant amount of tax, PRSI, USC and Pension Levy. Out of €1,769 paid in gross ; €650 (gross) of which was paid in March, balance paid in July I think I would have been lucky to clear €550 – €600 net.

Ada, sure arnt u lucky to have a job…???

Still I suppose that came in handy in march to coinside with your 2 week’s paid holidays in Easter…..
Ahhh Easter and the annual teacher union meetings/winges…. Can hardly wait

Pay static since 2008?? I assume that means no cuts either??? Lucky man

A public service worker on 66k will have their salary cut back to 65k to prevent the situation you described arising. It will be workers on 70k plus that will suffer the full 5.5% cut.

Oh boo hoo

Yes bizarre reaction from clearly overpaid cosseted public sector. This deal is a travesty. All public sector salaries should be benchmarked to European norms. If that’s not enough to prevent their employer, the state, going bankrupt, then cut it further. That’s the way it is in the private sector. Strange how those who advocate that public and private should stand together forget this.

There is an affinity and an alliance between politicians and senior civil servants.

The one thing that has been disclosed is that the privileged and protected public sector is not going to share the pain with the rest of us. Our public servants are excessively compared to their European counterparts but they use the big mortgages as an excuse not to take large reductions. The reality is that the private sector also has high mortgages.

The public sector blames greedy bankers and greedy developers for the collapse but the ultimate responsibility must rest with the public service watchdogs which became lapdogs and ignored their well paid obligations to regulate.

Yes because a pan of bread is 20c in Greece, that argument is pants.

I’m sick of listening to public sector moaning about losing perks and not getting increments,they live in an inverse dimension of the private sector,and if one more person says ‘frontline staff’ my head will f**cking explode. As a taxpayer I demand that the government slash this sector immediately,I’m sick of paying for this waste budget after budget

I’m a low paid private worker and I fully support the frontline! They deserve their pay and should take no cuts. I’ve seen the work they do and their incredible!

Front line staff. Lets see this explosion

The voice wasn’t being heard, jack O’Connor and the government side together stitched up all frontline staff, to protect themselves and avoid real reform

O’Reilly, you’re just being deliberately obtuse now.

Actually, no. What right has he to complain at the fairness of it when he refused to engage? Grand standing on national TV about the injustice having chosen to stay on the outside. He did not earn his pay on this one…

O’Reilly, being entirely honest, I don’t think it’d have made a difference. We nurses are mildly intelligent (gasp), we can see what this means for us without the help of our union. It most likely wouldn’t have made a difference whether we were on the inside or the outside, we were getting cut. But don’t feel bad, we can still pull a no vote. And then strike. We will be heard. :-)

James, that’s a cop out. As for strikes, you do what you feel you have to do. Nothing wrong with that…

The country is broke, the government is borrowing billions every Year just to keep the country ticking over, so there is nothing left to give to satisfy the various sectors within the public service.

harry price ‏@harryprice9
any cute garda out there

tweeted by you.

oh god. i threw up in my mouth a little. Serious chemical imbalance up there. Well folks another danger we have to deal with people like him too.