Same with teachers

Same here, its a horrible rule

Exactly Eilish, nobody in the Health Service is dumb enough to waste their precious sick leave as we all know damn well we’re gonna need it, plus we can’t afford to go running to GP’s looking for certs at €50 plus per go. When we’re sick, we’re genuinely sick. This whole thing seems to be a campaign to reduce the sick leave entitlements in the Public Service. Watch this space.

Nurses do have to do a back to work interview .and seven days are run up very quickly if ur sick on the last day of ur week on duty and then considered sick for ur week off till u return on duty.

@Ruairí You are right, I know myself and my colleagues are entitled to 12 weeks certified sick leave and I’m there almost 20 years. This can be extended to 24 weeks in extreme circumstances but an application has to be made in writing and it can only be given once every few years or so. I know or a few instances where people with serious illness were refused this.

It was news to me. An extra 4 days holidays, woohoo!!

Sick leave on Friday and / or Monday must be certified

Flexi time is an official policy not an unofficial perk and is policed accordingly. It also exists in certain private sector companies too and is not a civil service conspiracy. We can’t just work up a day to take a day whenever, there are limits. The year is split up into 13 four week flexi periods, in any one you can work up a max 10 and a half hours which you can then take as a day and a half in the next period. If you were to take away flexi our hours wouldn’t increase, we would just work a normal 9-5 office shift.

In fact civil servants work and are paid for a 41 hour week, additional hours for junior grades are calculated on this basis – more senior grades give their time free, or at reduced rates- the anomaly comes from flexible working which removed meal breaks from time calculations. On your basis these employees would be entitled to a pay rise.

“test” you need a “rest” from typing. Great job that allows so much free time to write so much rubbish! If things are so good in the PS change over and see how you like it. By the sounds of it jealousy is eating you up! Does Angela Merkell think you’re working too?

Brian, Dublin Bus inspectors are not civil servants, so if you’re going to bash the civil service may I suggest you use civil servants in your example. Basically what you’ve done here is claim to know the way civil servants think using non civil servants as an example.

Either way, you should not use one example of one eejit milking any system to paint everyone with the same brush. It’s no better than saying “The problem with foreigners/unmarried mothers/(insert other easy target here) is thet they’re lazy/a drain on society/all on the fiddle/(insert accusation du jour here) cos I heard one of them on the bus saying to their friend….blah blah blah”

We do have a return to work interview and 180,000 days to nearly 300,000 employees is less than a day per person per year, that hardly supports your assumption that all us civil servants consider we have 7 extra days off a year!

Joseph if the figures you’ve stated are correct then why the need for the article? I don’t tend to like these type of reports because you can generally put together a batch of figures to prove whatever point you want! I thought I heard on the radio the average was 14 days leave but once again what exact figures they were referring to is unclear!

Ted, the original article, linked at the bottom of the article above, stated this as the leave across the public service, if this is the case then it is out of a sample of nearly 300,000. If it is a case that this is only a sample of departments then I’ll happily retract my argument but as it was written I appear to be correct. As to why the article was published, I’d say that’s more of the same anti-public service bias that’s been prevalent in the mass media for a while now, unquantified large figures always seem shocking when taken out of context

@Too Trueleft You are of course correct. I should be using the term “Public service”. The problem is endemic in both the Public service and the civil service as a subset. As for the bus conversation – it happened almost two decades ago on a bus in Abbey St. I was so annoyed at the time that I still remember it!

But it is true and I do know people in the civil service and it is they way they think and it’s time for it to be called to book.

Well brian , if you can read civil servants minds like you seem to be able to think you can, what word was I thinking when i read your post?

If and I say IF a Dublin Bus inspector even was a servant of the state would he/she not be a Public Servant!
It’s time to check and get facts correct before making a comment. All it does is highlight how little people really know!
Chinese whispers comes to mind

Or on lunch or do shift work or who were on call last night so have today off. We dont all do 9-5.

@mel
You must be flat out too!

Just to let you know Mel civil servants are soo busy and so stressed but still try to remain calm in our undivided efforts to advice and do everything we can for all the people out there who need assistance something I have to say we all take very seriously especially in today’s crisis, while we civil servants those of us that still have a job & are glad to have one but at what expense, how would you feel in our shoes where wages are so small and I will speak for myself here but on behalf of hundreds more in the same position, such SMALL WAGES I am at breaking point unable to meet mortgage payments, look after kids, bills and food and they are the bare necessities, AND ON TOP OF ALL THAT listen to the backlash from the public who I think do not realize that civil servants majority are on shocking low wages (all the cuts as well) expected to do the work of others so a huge work load ( shortage of staff, as people have left the workforce) new work practices and huge demands with regard to volume of work and targets. so i think if you stopped and thought about all this you might look at things differently, there is nowhere for us to turn?? we cannot take much more of this bloody criticism and by the way WHERE WOULD THE COUNTRY BE WITHOUT US?? WE ARE PAYING FOR THE MISTAKES OF BANKERS AND GOVERNMENT, WE ARE HELPING GET THE COUNTRY BACK ON ITS FEET BY GIVING AWAY OUR WAGES AND TAKING ORDERS BEYOND OUR CALL OF DUTY, LOOKING AFTER THE PUBLIC WHICH I AM DELIGHTED TO BE ABLE TO DO AND BELIEVE YOU ME STILL STAYING CALM WHILE YOU AND THE REST BULLY, HARASS AND PUT US DOWN…. BLOODY COP ON AND WAKE UP AND SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING BEFORE YOU CRITICIZE NEXT TIME…