I couldn’t agree more with you about decentralisation Adam.

Regarding the HSE though, while it has a myriad of problems, what should it be replaced with? There’s no point scrapping something because it hasn’t been performing at optimum level if there’s nothing to replace it with. We have already seen these types of problems in the health service – things being scrapped before a replacement is in place – for example, Rosita Boland’s article of a night spent in the Mid Western Regional Hospital in Limerick gives a quite vivid depiction of the consequences of Ennis and Nenagh Hospitals’ nighttime A&E departments closing without a proper replacement service being put in place.

Here’s the article, makes for grim reading, I’m sure the scenes it depicts are replicated all around the country:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2011/1112/1224307440996.html

While I agree with you that the HSE has plenty of failures, I think the better solution is to improve it, not scrap it with a similar organisation with a different title.

Unfortunately I think the HSE is so dysfunctional that getting rid of it entirely is the better option. I see it as part of the govt’s overall health strategy (the other key aspect being universal primary health care) and the changes will be gradual and take at least one term of government to achieve due to the absolute shambles of the system, underlined only too well in that article you linked to.

Totally agree

But look at all the red thumbs you got. Clearly all the slackers in the public service with too much time on their hands.

Re the 10Bn deficit. We could close this in a heartbeat. You could let go half the public service and nobody would notice. Half the pensions of the public service retirees. They never earned these.

Stop paying the dole and let people emigrate. We’re so f’ing small minded in this country. If a (tiny) US state the size of Ireland had no work, but several neighboring states were doing well – would you pay people to sit around whining that they had no work.

Slackers in the public service eh. As someone in the public service I can reply cause I’m off. Not all of us have mon to fri, 9-5 jobs.

Say you cut the PS jobs. How would you decide who to cut. Would you go with age, service, etc.

Half their pensions and stop the dole. God where do I start on that.

I spent several years in both public sector (P&T) and Civil Service (Social Welfare)

I can say hand on heart both organizations were the most inefficient I have ever worked for. Any mere hint of suggested improvements was knocked back. The union presence in both was toxic.

As for your question – how would you decide on who to cut (a very fair question)

The unproductive ones. The ones who are always taking sick leave for the slightest sniffle, the ones with bad attitude, the whiners, the whingers, etc. Is this subjective or fair – no! – but that’s the real world.

I speak as someone who abused the system totally. I regularly took days off ‘sick’ because I wanted to spend the day with my girlfriend. On one occasion, I took the day off sick and turned up that evening for the office Christmas party. My bosses just laughed. I regularly ‘clocked in’ and then went for breakfast.

In all the years working in the private sector, I’ve never taken a single day off sick (even when I’ve felt shit). I’m not saying that’s healthy either. But it illustrates how far the PS is removed from the productive sector.

Just yesterday, I watched 4 council workers set a ‘do not cross’ guard rail in concrete. For the hour I could see them, only one worked at any time. The restaurant owner where I was having lunch told me that they had been there for 4 days.

I’m deadly serious when I say you could can half the PS and nobody would notice.

And as for the retired and you not knowing where to start – start somewhere, anywhere, I’d love to hear your defense of the fact that Mary Harney’s pension is now more than what she earned as a minister.

I’m all ears or are you just all talk?

Ok Paul. You said cut the pension in half. Yes that will affect the ex TD’s but will also affect the retired guard, nurse, etc.

Ok so get rid of this with bad sick records and no productivity. I’m a guard. So what level of productivity would you like. Please give an example. Also I know a few guards who received horrific injuries in the course of their duties. Should they be sacked.

I’ll agree that the sick leave should be something looked at in the PS. But how I don’t know.

@Cormac – It’s rarely the people. It’s almost always the system, For example, you’re a guard – a few months back I has one of your colleagues call at my house to hand deliver a court summons – all because I neglected to pay a minor speeding fine in time (my fault, no argument) – but why the hell does the system tie up guards time being messenger boys and girls for incompetent administrators.

When I attended the court (my first time) I was shocked at the number of guards hanging around to present evidence on stupid minor offenses. There was no need for them to be there. The evidence (in my case) was on camera.

I waited until the very end – there were two of us left. When the judge enquired if anyones case hadn’t been heard I gave him my name and he told me that his name wasn’t listed and I was free to go.

Now, please tell me that this isn’t serial incompetence….I’m sure you are sick of it.

Re the pensions, most of the pensions in the private sector have been wiped out. Not alone do most private sector workers not have the resources to reinvest in our pensions, the bloody pension funds we do have were raided to pay for stupid job initiatives (that don’t work) and our taxes (and that of our children) are being raised to pay for impermeable PS pensions and ‘protected’ jobs

The reason we have to hand deliver summons is this. They tried posting them to people. People just wouldn pay the oringal fine or appear in court and when they were eventually bought to court they just claimed that they received no notification and since it couldn be proved either way they got off. I hate hanging around in court but if a person plead not guilty to an offence all witnesses (in most cases just guards) have to be there to give evidence and answer any questions. In most of our cases they are dealt with by way of certain court approved forms but on others the guard has to turn up.

Eh? Think you’ve missed something there. That 23000 is not being fired. They’re retiring on pensions and not being replaced. Croke Park Agreement = No involuntary redundancies.

Natural wastage – sounds like excrement which fits perfectly.
Lets talk about “natural wastage” in the health service, my girlfriend is a nurse who has to rely on agency work, the “natural wastage” there sees “retired” nurses quitting one day, joining an agency the next and are back doing full shifts at the expense of newly qualified nurses the next, this is down to management and the cronysim which exists as nurse managers constantly give their old buddies the bulk of the hours.
These soundbites are nothing more than a drip feed of empty promises so we get the impression that they are doing something.

@Dermot: I attend hospitals a lot, and I’m amazed at how often the nurse is away “on break”. Not sure if it’s a widespread problem but from my experience, with one or two notable exceptions, they don’t exactly tire themselves in work.

my girlfriend says the same, there is a distinct problem when these retirees get brought back in, they are just there to add to their pensions, they don’t care…. they are are getting the hours and that’s all that matters to them whereas a new qualified nurse will put in the work in the hope of getting recognized and maybe a chance at proper employment. (not much chance of that really)

They’re in comfort zone, the nurse manager or whoever sets the roster knows them for years and of course they will look after their buddies first.

I look forward to details and numbers on these hard-working “notable exceptions”, and the exact stats service-wide on “breaks”. No? Didn’t think so.

As for agency staff, I think everone agrees that it’s wasteful, so why not apply the moratorium only where it’s cost effective, instead of bypassing it with more expensive staffing solutions, or maybe scrap the dumb moratorium altogether – let’s face it, staff (in any area) are either needed or they aren’t.

In response to the original post, I do agree that proper performance evaluations are important to ensure efficiency (or to find the “wasters”, as you say), but with everyone complaining about the amount of managers in the health service, I don’t see that being a priority any time soon. Damned if you manage, damned if you don’t.

I’m not a teacher, but just don’t understand complete begrudgers! The kids are on summer holidays, what do you expect them to do! Some people just won’t be happy until everyone is miserable! & the more morale is squashed the less productive productive parts of the public service will become. I’m all for the standardisation announced today some of the leave entitlement were crazy!

Marguerite, I have to correct you there…that level of holidays is only applicable to executive grades and managers, the basic operatives only receive around 20/21 days. I’m a firefighter and our leave is 20/21 days. The lowest in the PS.

Hear you Garth, but teachers do not get 20/21 days of annual leave/year do they?
And Deirdre, I am not a begrudger, as most parents now work part &/full time (if they are lucky enough to have jobs) schools need to extend the hours they operate and adapt to the times that we are living in.
We are no longer in the 1950s with a Mum at home during school holidays, schools should be offering a community service such as school camps and the like during the holidays supervised by teachers.
When everyone is working harder and longer for less, why should teachers remain a protected species?

There’s not much they really do without scrapping the Croke Park agreement. So it’s always going to be a lot of fluff and re-arranging of deckchairs. Politically I can understand why they can’t go there. The mantra at the moment is ‘We’re not Greece’. And we’d have strikes and riots just like in Greece if there were public sector pay cuts, and the chances of every getting into the bond markets and getting rid of the IMF would recede. So their hands are tied. It’ll be those on social welfare who will take all the hits.

“we’d have strikes and riots just like in Greece if there were public sector pay cuts”

Eh, there *were* and we *didn’t have*. Pity.

@Tim
So there’d be no strikes if the government announced they were scrapping the CPA and they were going to benchmark PS pay against EU averages? The creation of the CPA itself was the only thing that stopped industrial action getting beyond the point of just shutting down the passport office last time.

Well said Tim. Hits the nail on the head. I’d have simply hit the “like” button if it worked for me btw.

Don’t know why I’m bothering, but I might as well ask: If we tell the IMF to get lost tomorrow, then where will the money come from to pay for the PS?

You do realise there is a 10bn gap between what the government spends and what it gets in taxes even when you leave out all our debt payments?

It’s the IMF etc that are partially funding our PS and Social Welfare expenditure.

We haven’t even tried. Do you believe they will let it happen? I don’t because it will hurt them a lot more than it is at the moment. A mexican stand off at least instead of docile compliance. Grow a set too.

What’s our threat? Tell the IMF that we’ll refuse to take their money that is paying for the 10bn non-debt related deficit? Are those on the dole and those in the PS right behind you in threatening to take a 30% reduction in the money they get overnight?

Even without all that bank debt the government is spending 10bn more than it takes in. That’s the situation. We’d have to have tax increases and spending cuts even without the IMF etc. You can argue about how much you raise taxes versus how much you could spending, but you cannot argue that both can be avoided altogether. We can never go back to 2007 levels of spending.

10 billion debt is manageable. We wouldn’t have had the need of a bail out if that had been our problem. We would be still in the market and well on our way to reducing that debt. Have you forgotten “by the people, of the people, FOR the people? Or do you subscribe to the policy for the private investors? Or for german and french banks? Time to re privatize the banks and put them into natural receivership. BOI and AIB would survive but anglo would go. Otherwise we are doomed to high unemployment, no growth and massive emigration of our youth for possibly decades. Is that what you want? Seems like it. We are to worried about what others would think of us, instead of worrying what having a “Good reputation” in europe will actually do to us. Wake up and smell the coffee, they are laughing at us because we are fools and they are the “foolers”.

And how much of our debts are bank debts that we can now just wish away? And how much are sovereign debts? We’re building up more sovereign debt with every month that passes. What do you mean we are reducing our debts?

If you think defaulting on all our debts tomorrow means that we will still have exactly the same public sector expenditure and social welfare expenditure then you better explain where that 10bn will come from.

No point in debating with people who don’t read what people say to them. Get back to me when you read what I wrote properly. No bank debt no bailout needed. We would be still in the markets and borrowing. We have a bank debt by terrible government decisions which the current government is still implementing. Change me arse.

Anyway I enjoyed the vent. We must vent again sometime. I have to get back to the important things like looking after my children and doing the washing, though there’s no drying today.

Paul. 10bn deficit even without all the bank stuff. We’d be borrowing to fund that. We pay about 1% with the troika. We’d be paying a much higher interest on the open bond market. We would not be paying off our debt. We cannot possibly do that without running a surplus. Wishing the bank stuff away would still mean a mounting debt and cutbacks being needed. And we can’t wish away all the bank debt that was turned into sovereign debt anyway.