there all in slane

Stop giving out about Gardai, most of whom put their lives on the line to keep the rest of us safe. I have nothing but respect for them, this story would be nothing against the figure for allowances for politicians for the same period. Per capita I would spend it on the Gardai rather than the jokers who milked us dry for the last 14 years.

There’s an allowance for working a saturday???? And Fine Gael want to cut my allowance for working a Sunday. The entire systems of this state are so so wrong.

Why are we giving out about working people who pay tax. What about all the people who are screwing the state with allowances for sitting at home, a home the tax payer funds!!!

Money well spent. More of this and less for the banksters. I have never felt safer than here in Ireland. I have also found the guarda to be very helpful and friendly. Unlike the police in some other countries. No system is perfect, but this one is definitely first class.

Just another distraction from where the blame for all our problems really lies. The Gardai are the ones they hope will be manning the the thin blue line if we have riots ala Greece or Spain. If I was the minister I’d be bearing that in mind. Just on the Obama thing, I was driving at the back of the airport the night before he arrived. The weather was poxy to say the least and there were Gardai everywhere standing at road junctions in wind and rain with no Gardai umbrellas. I’d safely say, unless they needed the money for their mortgage, they’d be happy enough to stay in and watch Ryan Tubridy.

7 minutes posted and none of the anti-Garda gang are here yet?

Getting an allowance for working on a saturday night ?

Why ???

The IMF are paying them now
…. but not for much longer!

That €1 billion would be better spent in the education sector to help the disadvantaged who are now suffering because of recent cuts. It would make a difference there. Just goes to show how messed up the Irish system is.

Wait till the bill comes in for the Queen and Obama visits.

@ Dario. Clearly u have no idea how much the education sector was affected in the last two budgets. Class sizes have been increased after a long time fighting to get them reduced, Special Needs Assistants have been hugely cut, who suffers there only the children who need them, learning support has also been cut, not to mention the cut in teachers who help foreign nationals with the English language. And that’s not all. What about schools who badly need to be done up, with many schools using prefabs for years. So no I don’t agree that there is too much being spent.
@ Bob. I dont know if you read the article in the Sunday Independent last year about Garda allowances. But if you did I doubt you would have made the above comment so lightly. For example, who else gets an allowance to keep their uniform clean? Or a shoe allowance?! Is that really an expense that needs to be paid for our country to be more secure. It’s a disgrace what they get allowances for. And I know for a fact that the allowances make a significant difference to their paycheck. So while other public servants, like teachers, got very heavy pay cuts, they don’t have allowances to make up the difference. So I have very little sympathy for the Guards.

@ Connor. Security comes first before education? Look at it this way, if everyone was educated the same and given the same opportunities in life then maybe there would be less people turning to crime to make a living. We are talking about a generation at the moment who are being educated and who just might find a way forward out of the mess we are currently in. Everything is not so black and white.

@ Matthew. There is no comparison between the two. Garda allowances have not been updated to coincide with current times. Who else gets a living allowance. My point merely was to point out that they get paid money for allowances that is not reflected in the quality of service. Who else gets paid to keep their uniform and shoes clean? Alot of the allowances should be cut, that’s my point.

Dario, English language support teachers don’t teach English to foreign students as a language, they are there to ensure that the students fully understand the subject matter and terminology of individual subjects. So it’s not like they are getting free English classes. I myself had the experience of prefabs in school. However, some schools are in serious need of funding. Every generation thinks the younger generation has it better and it’s true, but that is called moving on in the world. Things change for the better! And I’m not having a go, merely expressing my opinion. Good education comes at a price. Statistics show other European countries spend more on education than Ireland does. For example, Switzerland if I rem rightly was the highest paying, if not in the top three.