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Updated at 6.10pm
THE HEAD OF the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform says there is still an “unacceptable” level of absenteeism in the state sector.
The department’s secretary-general, Robert Watt, today told the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee that in 2013 public servants took an average 9.5 sick days each for the 12-month period, which meant 4.3% of all working hours were lost to absenteeism.
“There remains a significant leadership and management challenge in tackling absenteeism across the public service,” he said.
The department today published figures which put the estimated cost of sick leave in the public service at €370 million through lost work hours in 2013.
The figures also showed the rate of absenteeism was significantly higher among civil servants and many major government departments than for front-line staff like gardaí, teachers and health workers.
The average number of days lost across the civil service in 2013 was 10.3, with the highest figure for any department of more than 200 staff coming in the Property Registration Authority, where the rate was 13.96 days a year.
That was followed by the prison service (12.62), Department of Social Protection (12.5) and Central Statistics Office (12.36).
The rates of absenteeism in Revenue (10.7) and the Department of Education and Skills (10.41) were also above the civil-service average.
Meanwhile, the figure for civilians working with An Garda Síochána was 12.4, which was above the rates for gardaí (10.7), health workers (10.6), Defence Forces (7.4), post-primary teachers (6.5) and primary-school teachers (5.9).
The lowest rates of absenteeism were in the Department of Finance (4.26) and Ordnance Survey Ireland (5.32).
Absenteeism ‘not acceptable’
In comparison to the public-service figures, a recent survey of 452 companies from business group Ibec found the average number of sick days per worker in the private sector was 5.5 a year – or 2.35% of their total hours.
Watt said he expected to see a fall in public-sector absenteeism after the introduction of a new sick-leave system last year which effectively halved entitlements.
The number of uncertified sick days public servants can take over a two-year period was cut from 14 to seven days under the scheme.
While (the 2013) figures do not reveal the impact of last year’s sick-leave reforms it is clear that this level of absenteeism is not acceptable,” he said.
‘Smaller, less expensive’
But Watt said he oversaw a public service which was now much leaner than before the financial crisis after a 10% reduction in staff numbers and 20% cut in the government pay bill.
The changes included a successful ”quango cull” of 181 government and semi-state bodies.
“The public service is now smaller and a good deal less expensive than it was in 2009, and its work in continuing to deliver essential services as budgets and staff numbers are reduced I think deserves to be acknowledged,” Watt said.
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What a devastating disaster. To destroy such an old established business like this. Hope ye can stay going and regroup. Nothing sacred anymore.
Ann
Maybe someone else nearby with a Catering Kitchen could allow her to use their kitchen on a quiet, or a shut shop, day? Esp’ if it has its own “Free Power”/Off-Grid Renewable supply (to keep overheads down – for both parties). A lot of places don’t open on Mondays, Tuesdays, & Wednesdays anymore. If she could still meet even half her clients’ orders that fit with the days she has kitchen access (for retention of freshness), it would give her a fighting chance to keep the business *in business* and ticking over while the Tradies are in the bakery unit restoring and renovating the place…. after the insurance finally inspects & processes whatever payment they intend.
Also – There should not be any water *still* pouring out into her shop unit. Would the Firefighters not have given her a hand there to find the external stopcock and turn off the mains supply to the store entirely.
Unless it’s coming from a loft or rooftop storage tank? But even then, it should quit eventually when it runs out of water . . . .unless, again, the mains outside is not turned off and is still supplying the tank.
We’ll keep the fingers crossed for them anyway.
Best of luck bouncing back
Hope they’ve got adequate insurance that will cover rebuilding and possibly loss of earnings. Even so, next year’s premium might be off the wall. Hate to see a decent family-run business like that destroyed. Not too many left anymore.
Is it possible that the fire could be caused by the ole reliable climate change claim ? Asking for an insurance friend of mine
1862 was a long time ago. Thought it was mostly spuds on the menu then
@The Hard Road: Is that what you thought? Read much?
@Jack Hayes: Comments section is full of w anchors.
@Jack Hayes: I stand corrected. I had thought there were lots of people subsisting on potatoes rather than cream cakes during that period of Irish history. Now I know better
@The Hard Road: Like the man in the orthopaedic shoes.
@The Hard Road: Everything was on the menu then, if you had the wherewithal to pay for it!
@The Hard Road: You are on the right track …-ish. Spuds were never the problem. Wholesale confiscation of all livestock, tillage crops, and grains, by Britain, as “Taxes” surplus to coin taxes and rents, were the problem. All the “tenant” farmer was left with to sustain themselves were usually a few spuds and other scarce bits. Potato crop failed the years of the Famine Genocide, AND Britain still continued to levy and escalate confiscation of all harvests and livestock.
But you would definitely be correct. Very few indigenous Irish would have had the option or opportunity to eat home made cakes, let alone *purchased* bakery goods from the City. Back then, the shop probably predominantly supplied indigenous Protestants who had favourable access to higher salaried professional occupations and lay jobs; and the non-indigenous, like Brits, who held all the Wealth (from Resource stripping).
That is not to say there wouldn’t have been a fair few indigenous Catholics who had reasonably well paid jobs and/or happened to have multiple teenage children capable of and succeeding in getting a lower paid City job who’s wages would then all go into the pot for the mother to run the house (and, buy a rare cake on a rare special occasion).
So it wasn’t wholly impossible for indigenous Irish Catholics to purchase a cake.
It was just far more probable the Protestant Privileged, and the foreign Resource Strippers, were the more common customer (possibly alongside tea shops and other commercial enterprises that didn’t have an in-house baker)
@Pink Freud: comprehensive and factual answer.
@Pink Freud: Sort of what we have now but with multinationals
That picture brought me back .Terrible news and places like this are very few nowadays. Some are intent on destruction and for what purpose? I hope they recover. I have a yearning for a jam doughnut now.
Ireland wants a franchise here. Greggs maybe
@Thesaltyurchin: But do we really, you have clearly have not tasted anything from Greggs.
@Michael Ward: Sarcasm. Apologies, it’s a hard one when read in context. But we do prefer our shop owners to run a Centra, our coffee to be Starbucks. Imagine it’s less work for officials to do, bigger employers, lower wages. If a costa goes bust it probably doesn’t even register a blip on their overall books. Ireland has never liked the SME (imo).
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