Just get rid of him

Pay a visit to any hospital, people need a stat dose of reality – they seem to think that those in the PS are there for the money, or are lazy, or do feck all, and yes – there are people who are there for those reasons, you get that in all areas of life, but the majority of PS workers are hard working people, and the majority of front line staff do not earn nearly enough for what it is they do.

Good on ya Niall!

Niall, Surely there are a range of things to be concerned about, off the top of my head:

The disproportionate number of state employees for a country of this size.
The disproportionate number of TDs for an electorate of this size.
Long term welfare dependants (as you’ve rightly pointed out)
Over paid public sector workers.
Profligate waste.
Sovereignty of bailout debt.

And more, lots more. But there isn’t one thing and there isn’t one solution. We can’t not discuss one because the others still exist, surely?

As the unions have indicated that would also be protected by Croke Park.

The unions have made it very clear that whatever changes need to be made to save this country money they want no part in it.

Your point?

Which bit didn’t you understand?

I did not say that I didn’t understand, I asked you what is your point?

That the unions have made it very clear that whatever changes need to be made to save this country money they want no part in it.

Ah I see, I came on here to express my opinion, whereas you just came on here to state the obvious. Well done, pat on the back. Now jog on.

How rude.

Not nearly as rude as your condescension.

Please accept my apologies for responding to your comment.

Howlin said yesterday he could not stop the increments due to be paid to higher paid PS workers. He also said the value in the increments in the overall scheme of things is miniscule. That may be true, however, that is not a good starting off point to ask those lower down the rungs to agree to even talking about cuts let alone agreeing to cuts.

Their are also union officials being paid enormous salaries in contrast to those whom they suggest they represent.

If only the rest of us were lucky to get half the allowances some of these people got.

Damien, if you work in the private sector, these allowances are part if your basic salary. You’re a butter fellow with an axe to grind – you should grind it with something other than the PS.

Ok lets see;

Footwear allowance
Driving allowance
Uniform allowance
Uniform cleaning allowance
Mobile Phone Allowance
Extra duties allowance
Eating on site allowance

What’s wrong with paying for these out of your own pocket like everyone else? Why should you be so different that you should get paid an allowance for it?

It’s not being bitter, its called being realistic. This countries finances are going down the drain, and if people are going to have their wages cuts, then some of these allowances are going to have to go. So suck it up.

I get eating on site allowance and its 1.90 a day and is so I eat in a truck by the side of the road like today wet covered in muck and no wash facilitys. because it would take to long to get back to my yard . 1.90 wow I’m bringing the country down

The point is, ALL these allowances add up.

If people’s wages, medical treatments, pensions, social welfare and many more are being cut left, right and centre, what’s wrong with allowances being cut?

A driving allowance? I drive and don’t get an allowance for it
I don’t get an allowance for eating where i work. Instead, when im shopping, i buy everything i need for it, so i dont need to go out and spend a damn sight more in the shops. Whats wrong with you doing it too?

Things is, alot of these allowances don’t need to be paid.

What the biggery flip is an “Eating on site allowance”?

Damien… I don’t get any of those allowances…

I get cardiac allowance and shift allowance…. That’s it!!!

Finegael want to take our cardiac allowance away cos were the little guys..

Tell me the reason for the allowance for working in an Irish area is for because I don’t understand that one?

@damien if you want to get these allowences you should have got a job in the public sector otherwise stop moaning , if you knew anything about some of the jobs that some of these allowances are attached to you would see that they are neccesary , its undeniable that some of these allowances are undefendable and rightfully should go but some are neccesary , and lets remember the goverment put the croke park agreement forward to the public sector , the ordinary frontline ps worker has suffered enough the jobs are hard enough in difficult often dangerous conditions they should not have to suffer more cuts to their already ravaged wages

@ Damien
Who in the PS gets a mobile phone allowance!?! Think you might be telling fibs there!! Lol

Who says i want these allowances? It’s the people who are getting them are the ones complaining now that they are going to lose them. It’s not my fault they are being forced to pay for them like everyone else has. The ones that are absolutely necessary i dont have a problem with, but most of them are just stupid.

Here you’ll find a list; http://www.newstalk.ie/2012/programmes/all-programmes/breakfast/full-list-of-public-service-allowances-and-premium-payments/

Point out where im wrong

I’ve just seen that list of allowances and laughed. Many of those allowances are not paid. Perhaps this is why Howlin couldn’t cut 75m.

I’d love to have a nurse or garda full stop, regardless if they still care or not.

No pay rises, little or no perks??? Are you living in some sort of twilight zone??? All the people i know in PS get a day off just to go Christmas shopping for god sake, this can’t be done on your time off like everyone else. It’s this sort of bull that is costing so much. Yes, private sector had it good for a time, just like the public sector, but they’ve had to cut their cloth according to their measure, it’s time the PS done the same. Strike if you must, you’ll get no damn support from the public, that’s for sure. See how long your strike lasts when the public turn on you and your unions, not very long I bet

You obviously cant read either the public have long since turned against us. As for support for a strike. There are 300,000 public servants added together with their families Thats a lot OF People. Also no one gets a day for xmas shopping Thats more of your Irish independent ideas any days off taken come out of annual leave. I get no perks. A minimum nine hour day with a twenty minute lunch break Thats some perk. You really are bit of a dumb ass Jason

I see you skirted around the issues of the banks and the lies people told on their loan applications. Selective criticism Thats real media opinions. Can you not think for yourself. You probably paid for a degree to think through the media. Money well spent

i agree with you maybe we should withholding our mortgage repayments in protest at intrest rate rises instead of fighting each other

Good on ya Peter!

Sorry daisy but if a teacher is on leave durning the holidays she carries over the 3 months holidays into her maternity leave.
Look cut from the top down then we might not need to attack frontline workers.

Fair play to you Peter.

For once the unions are right…. The government are planning to take a €16 per week allowance off paramedics, yet they keep every allowance they are on…. We get paid Fook all as it is….

So they want to take €16 a week off you?

My heart bleeds for you.

Do you have kids? Then be thankful if you don’t because if you did, you have a hell of alot more taken off you.

And be thanfull you have a job in the first place, because if you didn’t, any social welfare money you MIGHT be able to get and going to be subject to major cuts if half the stories coming out are to be believed.

So be thankful it’s only €16 a week they are taking off you. Everywhere else people are losing their jobs and having their wages cut by alot more.

@ Damien, it’s not my fault I have a job… I got off my backside and educated myself while others sit on the dole…. If I had a € for every time some one said “you’re lucky to have a job” I wouldn’t need to work.

The point is that’s another €64 gone out of the pay check every month… Unlike you I have to put diesel in the car to get to work every day/night. I pay my mortgage etc. I have no medical or gp card. Yet the politicians who want to take money of frontline emergency workers (some of the lowest paid staff in the HSE) continue to receive ALL of their unvouched allowances…. It’s hypocrisy of the highest order!!!

I’m well educated too. And who said i don’t have a job? Who said i don’t have diesel in the car? Who says i don’t have to pay a mortgage? Before you making assumptions about me, why don’t you find out what the hell you’re talking about..

Plus there are plenty of people on the dole who are highly educated aswell, so you’re argument is thereby invalid. Now they have to decide of wither staying on the dole and HOPE to find a half decent job to pay the bills, or take their family out of the country.

Other people’s wages are being cut, some by alot more then €16 so quit complaining. If you don’t like what’s happening, then do something about it instead of coming on here, complaining and looking for sympathy because you won’t get any off me or many others, that i can tell you.

This is a divide and conquer game Howlin is playing . Each and every one of us ,workers (+Private /Public,)Unemployed ,disabled/able bodied, elderly/young, Students, parents, married/ single, lone parents, mothers , fathers , married ,divorcees , private housing , local authority housing, etc etc …are finding it tough. It is so unfair that we have been so thoroughly decimated and reduced to watching what everyone ls is getting / not getting ? ! Solidarity and supporting each other and standing up to this cowardly government . Enough is Enough . Damien and Nocturnal, I wish you both well and hope things work out for all of us .

Yeah there I’s a recession at the minute, that doesn’t stop the bills coming into peoples homes..bills have to be paid and that’s very hard to do if the goverment at every chance are taking money off..well overdue that we stand up and say NO for a change!!!

I’d be happy enough with this cut to be honest because it doesn’t affect me.

Damien its people like you that are the problem…. Just take the pay cut and be happy… People have every right to be disgusted that there wages are being cut further..

Take the cut and be happy? Are you serious?

Tell that to the bank when the mortgage payment has to be paid and all the other bills have to be paid. Tell that to the guy in the shop when i have to do food shopping.

I was a public service worker , now retired ,and those allowances are necessary . Walk in my shoes and tell me how to live and tell me how to do MY job . The unions are right to oppose this idea .

I don’t think you got my comment Damien… You’re the one telling me to shut up and take the cut and stop whining about it….

Nocturnal paramedic.
Ordinarily I would welcome the reduction in allowances. But you point is spot on. To be fair they are looking at attacking front line services yet retain their untouched allowances. It’s scandalous, and again I think they have misjudged the anger seething through society towards them.
Public sector reform is a given, and must happen, but they need to look in the mirror before going after yourself and other vital sectors.

Good lord Damien, what are you rabbiting on about. If at some time you fall, have a heart attack or some emergency, you will be glad of Damien turning up in his” lucky to have a job” and saving your angry arse.
I repeat myself, public sector reform is a given, but why attack the small guys at the bottom and leave the fat cats get all the cream.
I also think this line that someone is lucky to have a job is utter shite.

My apologies, of course i meant if Nocturnal turned up in his ambulance.

Im all for going after the guys at the top, but can’t expect to sit back and not contribute in some form. And with the amount of people getting laid off, i would be lucky to still be employed for the forseeable future. That is what makes me work harder so when push comes to shove i’ll still have a job to come back to the next day.

And how is that utter shite? Having a job is a privilage, not a right, remember that.

Sorry Damien but there’s no talking to ye… We’ve already seen our wages slashed.. Enough is enough!!!

This €16 allowance, this is the CPR allowance?

Does this mean that there are paramedics working for the HSE who don’t know CPR and therefore don’t get this allowance?

Ins’t CPR the sort of thing that you’d expect paramedics to know?

Not sure what you mean by referring to having a job as a “privilege”.
If you mean someone needs to work hard, get a good education or enhance ones abilities in a quest to get work, then yes having a job is a reward for putting in the effort.

To have a job is certainly not a privelege ,it is your right . In fact I would even go so far as to say it is your duty to your family and society to hold a job .

“To have a job is certainly not a privelege ,it is your right . In fact I would even go so far as to say it is your duty to your family and society to hold a job .”

Show me where having a job is your right. Is it in the Constitution? Has it been put into Law? Is it part of the bill of Human Rights?

Where does it say it’s your right to have a job?

“Not sure what you mean by referring to having a job as a “privilege”.
If you mean someone needs to work hard, get a good education or enhance ones abilities in a quest to get work, then yes having a job is a reward for putting in the effort.”

That’s still no promise that you’ll get a good job here. If it was everyone who put the effort into going to college here in Ireland would have gotten the job they wanted. Instead, they come out where there is hardly a job for them and they’ve had to emigrate to a different country to find it instead. So do we tell everyone that if you go to college, stud hard, put the effort in and they’ll get a good job?

Or tell them that they can go to college, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be a good job for them by the time they finish.

Damocles… It’s called a cardiac allowance.. It was originally given to “ambulance drivers” who we’re trained to use it as back in the day the driver only did first aid and had a nurse on the ambulance with him. We retained the allowance because we decertify every year on the defib machines and CPR. Now I hear you shout”shouldn’t paramedics do this is standard?”. Unfortunately when we up skilled to paramedic level we were never paid as such… and we still aren’t. If you look up hse pay scales you will not find paramedic in there. You will see us under “emergency medical technician”. We’re right in there with the support staff like cooks and van drivers… Infact porters are paid more than us!!!
They can take the allowance off us but expect about 1200 paramedics too start looking for payment as paramedics….

Damien, you are going around in circles with your argument. You hold fast to the idea that a job is a privilage, so what if i dont want to feel privilaged, do i choose not to work, and thats ok cause i dont want to be one of the privilaged few. Seriously what in the name of holy are you trying to say. Of course no one is guranteed a job but putting in the effort will increase the chance of getting one. Am i to tell my kids, feck dont bother with that college malarchy, or doing your apprenticeship sure there’s no gurantee of a job, you would be better off doing F’all.
Explain to me what you are actually trying to say, and as your at it have a look at your last few comments.
You are a tad bit confused.
But look if you want to belive its a privilage, do.

A Pill?

Think he means a “votail”

Obviously just a typo, should be “poll”

@Frank 2521

What makes me angry about the Irish language is that it is needed still for many jobs in Ireland. It’s just so outdated and unfair to many. Why do I feel that way? Well, on a personal view point, I’m dyslexic as is my daughter. Unfortunately, back in the late ’60′s early ’70′s there was no such thing as ‘exemption from Irish’. Thankfully, there was for my daughter. Ever since she was a little girl, she wanted to be a teacher. She received honours in her Leaving Cert. Sadly, for her, Irish was not one of them. Because of this, she cannot go to college in Ireland and do teaching!

She left for Canada two weeks ago to find work and also hopefully be given an extra 2 years on to her visa, so that she can study primary school teaching. Sadly when and if she was to come home, she won’t be allowed teach here! She is one of a minority in Ireland that are punished because of her dyslexia. If I had the energy and money I would be fighting for her right to teach in her own country. So wrong, to hell with the Irish language, learn to speak it as a hobby but don’t push it on people and refuse them their dream in life.

The “printing in two languages” is gone now.

Well said.

You should take a look at the starting pay for EMT’s, Paramedics, Guards, nurses etc before you make stupid sweeping statements like that.

Clarence I don’t think you can really look at a Garda’s starting wage and get a picture of what they’re earning! If you can wade through the myriad of allowances that they receive you will see a completely different picture! Of course they probably deserve it for the line of work they’re in but I would much prefer if it was just called wages so nobody could hide behind this misinformation anymore!

We need to approach this situation both logically and fairly.
Take for example the Gaeltacht allowance. It would be reasonable to presume that there is no difference in the personal costs of being a District Nurse in Rath Cairn in Meath or Athboy which is three miles away.
Therefor the Nurse working in Athboy or Trim is disadvantaged by the amount of this allowance. To make the situation fair it would be logical to remove the sum of money completely.
Next one please……………………

Hon the unions. The workers united will never be defeated!

“Public sector on the other hand can take weeks at a time without fear of reprimand. ”

Because it’s certified by a doctor.

“I know someone who had 3 children, one straight after the other, she was out nearly 3 years with full pay, public sector again. ”

All women are entitled to 26 weeks’ maternity leave together with 16 weeks additional unpaid maternity leave. It’s no different in the public sector.

Jason I agree with you on the maternity leave- it is widely abused and the rest of us have to take up the slack who while these women are constantly missing.
However on the sick pay try to look at it this way: a person works his/her allotted hours per week…. He/she performs whatever labour/tasks to a certain standard in a certain time frame: ie he/ she works hard. If this person does not cut the cloth regarding attendance or performance they are sacked.
As long as they are performing, however, they are making money for their employer, and if they weren’t making money for their employer they would be told to sling their hook.,,,so, without mentioning public/ private sector, would you agree with me in saying that a worker should be entitled to a certain level of sick pay if unable to work, as they dutifully and loyally put the effort in when they are well, rather than just not be paid by the man who they are generating profits for the rest of the time?

You’d prefer they don’t keep up to date?

No, I’d prefer they, like most people in a normal working environment, didn’t get paid extra for keeping themselves up to date on changes in their profession. It’s hardly outside their standard job description to keep pace with changes in their field.

Before or after the average 80 hour week? If it was a normal working week I would absolutely agree.

Tom
What is a normal working environment ?
Attending the carnage of a road traffic accident ? Or taking dead burnt bodies out of a car after a crash ? Giving resussitation albeit with the aid of specialist equipment to a vomiting bleeding patient? Maybe chasing down gang land criminals who are armed better than our Gardai? Informing family of the death of a loved one( Nothing worse imo)
Or is sitting at a desk typing in data to a computer normal?
The begrudgery on here is nothing short of disgraceful . How many times have we said that Nurses /Fire personnel do not get paid anywhere like enough for their expertise and dedication .So for my part I would like to commend these men and women for looking after us in our times of need. They have already been cut enough!

Only after the politicians and other elites have taken substantial cuts. Leadership and example are needed.
Howlin is such an eejit, two weeks ago little or no cuts, now some cuts, what next?
By the way, Another great photo!

No there is not ! People are unaware how low paid some members of the public sector actually are. You are misinformed on the pay scales of most public sector workers. They have already taken large pay cuts, and can not afford or are not prepared to take any more. Why don’t you suggest that the goverment starts these cuts at the very well paid members of this society and leave the hard working nurses, guards clerical staff etc alone.

16 euro isn’t much to lose from your pay packet?? The pay packet that I have to earn unlike sitting at home doing nothing and receiving social welfare?? Big difference….

Not much! Many public servants are on family income assistance.fact!

*would

Jay social welfare is also crippling the state, so do you suggest cutting that ! I hope not.

Ps wages are crippling the country? I thought it was the banks. Ah yeah the builders, who earned huge wages during the boom, much more than the average public sector worker did. Should i feel guilty because i still have a job?