While I am not anti teacher at all, I need to make a few points.

No perks you say, some would argue that the extra payments for unrelated qualifications is a perk, also paid holidays more than the usual 21 days is a perk.

Also you say you will never be rich, looking at the pay scale their are a lot of teachers rich, after a number of years teaching will HDip + masters bonuses + huge increase for years served + huge increases for assistant principle / principle.

So don’t give up, if the scale remains the same you have every chance of being rich with long holidays.

Eugene….sense at last!

How can they possibly get by!

That seems to be after tax :) so it’s what €100k a year? :)

Hey Robert ! None of them are earning €905 per week, but loads of them are getting it!!

Maybe so Neil but none of the right ones are getting it. i.e frontline.

How is it misleading are you not aware how any average is worked out,irrepective to what it is.

I can see Ailis’s point. A two tier civil service with the ridiculously high earners dragging up an average could mean that the vast majority of civil servants earn lower than the “average” wage. I’m private sector all my life so I don’t really know what public sector workers earn so I don’t know if that’s true, but I can see the point.

What about the 350k that got a 100% pay cut?

Nobody wants to hear that, Damien. It makes you a less effective whipping boy because tarring all public servants with the same brush takes less thought and effort.

I don’t think people are giving out about nurses, Garda, firemen and teachers. Personally I don’t think any politician or civil servant deserves to get more money than these people. We have far too many office staff and far too less front line staff but it’s the office staff who make the decisions about pay and employment and they are too greedy to realise this or do anything constructive about it.

during the boom nobody wanted a pubic sector job, not enough money in it. the tables have turned now and we have become the whipping boy, the emphasis being on job security rather than salary. This “average” wage of EU905 per week, i will never earn that in my career, nor will the majority of my colleagues. so average and reality are two very different things.

3 day week?

Again, Damien, nobody wants to hear that. Least of all the media. Whipping up outrage among the public with sweeping and misleading statements generates more website hits and sells more papers.

I agree Damien, I’m not a nurse but I’m a front line HSE Public Service employee, my P60 shows my gross earnings for 2011 was €27K. I’m fed up every second week reading some story in the media about how I’m earning almost a grand a week, my wife is beginning to believe these stories and thinks I’m just crying poverty.
I know some of my other colleagues earn a similar wage to me, I even earned more than some nurses when we happened to compare basic wage slips once and my daughter is a nurse too.
If those of you out there really think the Public Service and the HSE in particular are having such a great time of it, what stopped you? For years you could have joind up, you could have been a nurse, you’d have to train for 4 years at your own expense then get verbally and physically abused, puked on, poke prodded and ridiculed on a daily basis for sweet damn all. Its not too late to to get this daily tirade of abuse, you can train and join any of the agencies who will find you employment as an agency staff member in one of our hospitals where you too can be overworked, underpaid and generally have every fool looking in assume “you have a handy number there boss.”

Brain show your wife your P60 surprised you don’t already.Think your all missing the point.There is alot in the PS underemployed and overpaid.I don’t any private sector worker has an issue with frontline staff.BTW i was a firefighter once.

Norman believe it or not I had to do just that. I realise that the PS is top heavy with management, we know that better than anyone, but to constantly quote overinflated figures as everyones average wage just p**ses everyone off. If the dole was constantly quoted at twice what it is there’d be war.
People tend to feel angry and look for someone to feel angry at, they choose the PS, and our government help them in that regard by implying that we’re somehow to blame. Ordinary PS workers DO NOT earn anything near €900 per week, if they didn’t work or do their job they’d be disciplined. Yes there will always be exceptions, or “I saw a bloke last week doing nothing”, but as a rule nobody can just sit around. If anyone has a doubt go visit their local hospital and see for themselves, if they think its easy and like what they see, join an agency.

Btain your narrowing the debate to hospitals again frontline staff are not an issue in my veiw they are not paid enough.But again i repeat their is a lot in the PS underemployed and overpaid.

Private sector workers generally have to earn every last cent! Unlike teachers and so on! I know a teacher that just had three weeks off to get married! Apparently they’re entitled to do this. Where else could it happen? Three weeks off with full pay, on top of the other 13 or 14 weeks paid holidays! “Reality dodgers”. The whole lot of them!

Agree with you Damien 100%
I wish people would STOP bashing the low paid public sector workers like you and me. This really pisses me off.

@damian
Red herrings aside, here is my point of view.

In the private sector any company who is making a loss, and losing money reduces overheads. Wages are cut, and people ultimately are let go…this is evidenced by the live register. If a company is making money, and a profit, then wage cuts are not necessary.

In the public sector, your employer is bust, losing money hand over fist and borrowing at unsustainable rates. Overheads have to be cut, wages and redundancies….benchmarking increased pay to crazy levels, and maintained a 30% gap on average industrial earnings.

Unfortunately the only ones now left in the private sector are working for companies who make a PROFIT….all the rest are unemployed or accepting big pay cuts hoping things will turn around.

This is the safety valve in the private sector…..where is the safety valve in the public? Companies who can’t pay there way go bust….public sector = borrow more and or levy extra taxes on private workers to pay. Never cut wages or employment….doesn’t make sense.

The public pay cuts already experienced do not even cover the current ridiculous public sector pension costs….there is a long way to go.

Savings should be targeted at the silly extras, overly generous overtime, allowances, increments, bonuses, crazy pensions, early retirement etc….certainly not focused on front line workers on modest salaries.
But there is a lot of fat to cut, of that there is no doubt !!

@damian
Red herrings aside, here is my point of view.

In the private sector any company who is making a loss, and losing money reduces overheads. Wages are cut, and people ultimately are let go…this is evidenced by the live register. If a company is making money, and a profit, then wage cuts are not necessary.

In the public sector, your employer is bust, losing money hand over fist and borrowing at unsustainable rates. Overheads have to be cut, wages and redundancies….benchmarking increased pay to crazy levels, and maintained a 30% gap on average industrial earnings.

Unfortunately the only ones now left in the private sector are working for companies who make a PROFIT….all the rest are unemployed or accepting big pay cuts hoping things will turn around.

This is the safety valve in the private sector…..where is the safety valve in the public?

The public pay cuts already experienced do not even cover the current ridiculous public sector pension costs….there is a long way to go.

Savings should be targeted at the silly extras, overly generous overtime, allowances, increments, bonuses, crazy pensions, early retirement etc….certainly not focused on front line workers on modest salaries.
But there is a lot of fat to cut, of that there is no doubt !!

3weeks off? I think it’s you who has an alternative reality going on if you believe that Chinese whisper. Teachers can’t take holidays at times of their own choosing so if you get married during term time you can take up to one week immediately after your wedding including your wedding day. It’s an one-off entitlement that was swapped in bargaining in lieu of some pay rise that was otherwise due.

@hellogoogletrafficking, whilst to an extent I can see the point you’re trying to make, the public sector is not intended to generate a profit – by definition it is supposed to provide services to the public funded by the public purse, ie. non-commercial.
We have all seen some of the privatisation debacles that can happen when profit is put before people.
Nobody wants to see unnecessary waste, but neither does anyone want to see corners being cut in provision of public services. I’m all for staying within budget, but you have to accept that inevitably reduced funding will mean a reduction of services to a greater or lesser extent.

@mattoid

I agree with a lot that you say
I was making the point that private sector wages are not dropping because they only people still employed work for companies making money. The equivalent of pay cuts between public and private doesn’t make sense. People lose their jobs if they are not profitable.

I understand the public sector isn’t meant to make profit, however like you say it has to be funded by the public purse. That when the purse cannot afford current levels….. what is the equivalent safety valve to save costs and the countries services?

As regards the effects on service point, yes if pay rate remain a their very high levels (on average and based on international comparisons based on GNP, not the distorting GDP) then staff cuts are required = reduced service.
But if pay cuts are introduced then staff numbers remain the same and service levels should remain the same.
Of course unnecessary roles can be cut, we are completely broke so we need to focus on providing the essentials.

40% of ps pay is from troika borrowing. The beal bocht won’t go too far when the borrowing runs out.

@ Neil, would you ask your fearless party leaders to lead by example and limit ALL tax-payer funded salaries to a max of 100k per year, including Dame Enda and the cabinet. In reality this would shave approx 3-5 billion (between direct pay and pension rights) for the tax-payer. It will mean the front-line staff are not being hit and the excehequer finances will be in much better shape… QED. Would any of the FF/FG/Labour folks have an issue with this??? Because, guess what, if SF get into power at the next election, that is what is coming straight at you. You better start getting used to the idea. I cant wait to see Hearneys, Clowens, McDowells and oh, yeah Berties Face when they iopen their pension pay-slips and see they are cut by about 75%… oh happy days :)

Cal, I wouldn´t trust any of you SInners with maths. I don´t have any problem with the Berties and the rest getting massive pay cuts, but that 5billion figure is absolute rubbish. Theres too many PS workers getting 100k plus a year, but its not enough that we can dock their pay and save 5 billion a year. Its a nice populist slogan, but its fantasy.

@ Neil:
…thanks to a public bailout of private sector banks….

mattoid: no, look at the exchequer figures. We´ll be borrowing 13bn or more this year to fund PS pay and SW. Unfortunately we´re borrowing even more to fund existing debt, bank related and otherwise. But you cannot deny that PS pay and SW is being funded by borrowing. http://finance.gov.ie/documents/exchequerstatements/2011/enddecexcheqstat.pdf

PS pay and SW levels were built up by tax returns on a property bubble that is long gone and not coming back.

Neil, for the record, I am not a SF member, i am not politically affiliated outside of the blogosphere. I am 1 of the 25% in this country (and yes, i was one of the 11% at the last election) that voted for SF in the election. If you want to brand 25% of the population Shinners …. go right ahead. By this time next year it will be over 30%. You cant keep putting your head in the sand and hope that people like me are going to stop thinking the way we do… We have listened to your established parties for too long, and we see where that has got us.

Cal, I really do hope that people start treating SF as a serious party in the South, as the media might actually scrutinize all the crap being spewed about how they can stop borrowing from the troika while increasing spending. We had a taste of it this week when Pádraig Mac Lochlainn was forced to talk about the need to turn to the loving embrace of the bond markets to fund the country, not stuff he was comfortable with.

Here here, the debate is always skewed by low paid frontline staff complaining. No one is questioning their pay, why can’t they realize that??

The silence is deafening from the fat cats on forums such as this though, not a peep of of them.

They must love watching the overworked public sector frontline staff defend them every time on these topics.

There is without doubt huge inequalities and inefficiencies and waste and duplication of roles and indefensible perks and pensions within the system. How is it that everyone doesn’t agree with this??

PS pay levels doubled during the property bubble. Why? Because the government had easy tax money coming in from all the new houses being built and sold. You can say that the country still needs to fund that level of pay even without all that easy tax money, but its requiring massive borrowing to do it so far.

Please vote No in the referendum if you want to stop all this borrowing.

Neil, where are you getting your information from? You constantly spout rubbish about the PS-what are you basing this on? I have been qualified as a nurse for 10 years and my pay certainly never doubled during the boom. Our increments are worth about €900 per year. Before tax. Check your information. You’re making a fool of yourself.

@neill

We are borrowing to make up the budget deficit

Neither a yes or a no has any baring on how much tax we collect or how much we spend on public services.
Don’t say debt repayments because we are borrowing to pay them as well.

How ironic

Sara, the PS pay bill doubled between 2000 and 2008 on the back of the tax returns of the property boom.

HelloGoogleTracking!
It won´t make a difference for a year or so. We still have access to borrowing from thecurrent bailout. But if we can´t get cheap borrowing from the ESM, then we´re left with very expensive borrowing from the bond markets. That´s really going to hasten the day we need to close this primary budget deficit and have spending on PS pay andSW in line with taxes. Its really only a huge boom in the export market that can avoid that “adjustment” being far more drastic than anything we have seen in the last few years.

Right, so PS pay levels did not double. PS numbers increased. Not the same thing. At all.

@Neill

I agree 100%

The budget will have to be balanced either way, otherwise no one in their right mind will lend to us. I wouldnt for sure.

However a yes or a no in the referendum doesn’t effect that simple fact at all. But let’s not start the referendum debate yet

The only potential benefit I can see from our bailout is perhaps we will be forced from oitside to sort out our public spending on services. If Europe does it great, if the troika does it same difference.

@Sara

So you believe then that public sector numbers doubled then?
Also that benchmarking did not happen, and pay rates across the public sector did not rise?

If the amount spent of the public sector pay doubled, how is saying that public sector pay doubled not correct?

That would be a difficult position to back up, don’t you agree?

Next, do you really believe then that we need to spend double what we spent in 2000 to have a working public sector?
If not how much of a reduction would you suggest?

Sara, it was you that read PS pay levels as being individual, not sum, so don´t blame me.

Neil, considering this topic is about individual pay, I think it follows that this is what people would be referring to. Obviously, you’ve just gone off on one of your copy and paste rants…

love it!

My point exactly!

Their are lots of private hospitals and nursing homes that do those tasks too.

I think that answers your point.
Most firemen are only part time, and to suggest the only motive people have for anything is money, is a poor reflection on our public service.

Nurses in private nursing homes get better salaries than their public sector equivalents
They also have better working conditions in most cases working in newer buildings with better equipment etc
Not to mind the fact that residents in private nursing homes pay well for the privilege of being their so the nursing and care staff generally don’t get dogs abuse from patients on a daily basis unlike their public sector colleagues
Very few drunks and junkies in private nursing homes!!

Well said ………. If u pay ur own wages maybe u should give ur self a pay rise or better still take some of enda cause he earns more than the president of the united states

There are thousands on the dole who would gladly swap and hundreds more who have trained as nurses but have had to move abroad to get work.

@Richard….you missed my point…I earn every penny I get in my wage packet…which I refuse to apologise for. Pitching public v private is a strategy….which is working. I’ll never be rich and I’m through being a punching bag.

Exactly, Dermot. My brother earns €550 per day, plus expenses,as an IT consultant in the private sector. Phenomenal money in my opinion, the likes of which no frontline PS worker would even dream about earning.

He generates profit for his company who pay him.

The public sector do not generate profits.

People in the private sector who cannot generate profits lose there job or get pay cuts. Look at the quarter million people who have lost their job.

How many public sector workers have lost their jobs?

As a group you can decide to keep high salaries and shed jobs or all take pay cuts and all keep jobs. But we are broke and cannot afford the bill.

The only money the government have to pay public workers with is taxes collected from private sector. ( p.s don’t say you pay tax too because it is giving back the original tax you were paid with, slight of hand and costly, should be paid net, same goes for VAT etc) the only money generated in the economy comes from private sector workers generating money…..and it is cut throat.

The public sector is paid for by the private sector.
When he private sector inflated with a bubble, so did the public.
Now that the private sector has shrunk dramatically, there is no money to pay, and the public sector has to either shrink accordingly or shed lots of jobs.

They are intrinsically linked, an unpleasant truth, but still the truth.

I wish it was different and both sectors were happy and full of money…..but that only existed in a bubble, now it needs to be corrected……

It sucks

We did! I’m a nurse and my husband is a Garda. Our combined monthly income has been reduced by about €1800 per month.

Another personal attack, my intention was making a point that there are perks. Granted It was poorly written.

According to the TUI website €1236 can be claimed for HDip, and €5,496 for a masters (1st or 2nd hons), and these can be claimed together.
Principles allowances range from €9k up to €42, deputy from €3 to €27.
These are combined with the qualifications allowances and yearly increments. I understand these may have been modified for new entrants, and remain the same for existing staff.
These are the facts I was basing it on.

That aside, my post on teachers was poor I agree, and I can understand it didn’t come across well. I regret that, because like i tried to say I am not anti-teacher, quite the opposite. For the record I hold teachers with the greatest respect.

If that’s the case Gerry, why are they not kicking up? It doesn’t usually take too much for the likes of Liam Doran and his cronies to threaten all sorts!

No need for the personal attacks, I am just expressing my point of view, if you think I have been unfair or disagree let me know why. They are reasoned points which i think are true, but i am open to correction.

Disagree with you Dermot. Google tracking is making valid points. It’s painful but we are bankrupt if there is more money going out than coming in. The public sector and private sector need to co exist. The problem with the public sector is from the middle up NOT the frontline staff. It’s the bloated administration and bloated salaries of administrators. It’s the lack of rewards and promotion prospects for the thousands of really good people in the public sector who can get looked down by colleagues for being ambitious for fear they may show someone else up. Promote on ability not purely years of service. And sack the rubbish.

Hey I work in the public sector and most of the people here are spouting media introduced crap
I work 40 hrs a week on shift work which means I get to see my kids off and on during the week- due to hours- I work all bank holidays if scheduled including this year xmas eve, Xmas day, Stephens day and new years eve I would rather been at home with my kids after all my deductions USC, tax, prsi, health ins, so on I earn no where near €905 euro
It’s true what was said during the Celtic tiger nobody wanted a public sector job not enough money in it u could earn €1000 euro Layin blocks allegedly-
So why now should I listen to all the ney Sayers who are speaking about things that don’t know about and are spouting the crap they heard or read somewhere – million pound pensions, 40 days off a year , 10 days sick leave- all crap
By the wAy enda Kenny is a public sector worker technically maybe u should compare my wages to his- he gets 4 months off a year maybe I’m entitled to that to

Thanks Sara,

I think we share common ground, the majority of reforms should be top down without doubt. All sensible people agree.

The point I made about being rich was based on an individual with HDip + masters allowances(1.2k + 5.6k) + >10 yrs increments(>45k) + a deputy / principle allowance(27 – 42k) bringing the salary to over 100k.

This most people would also agree is rich, especially when combined with the extended holidays. I know many teachers who also agree this is overpaid for the duties a principle carries out. And let’s not mention the pension.

Everyone won’t achieve that, but I made the point is possible. (made the point badly no doubt)

Anyway, let’s all hope that the winds change and the private sector recovers, and we can rebuild to a sustainable levels of taxation and public services in balance. As we cannot continue to borrow 20bn a year to fund it any longer.

1+1=3 I done the math

To take the challenge I would point to several ex health board chiefs who were replaced, and because they couldn’t be fired, were to young to retire, and couldn’t move down in grades get moved to another office to do nothing. There are also lots of politicians receiving pensions over that amount (not over 65, so not really a pension is it?), loads of early retired HSE chiefs, the ex chief government adviser etc…..etc….etc….

Seriously though, the issue isn’t people getting paid for doing nothing, that is not the major concern, the main issue is the inefficiencies, duplication, and the wastage as a result.
All the examples you seek can be found in the McCarthy report, which highlights the inefficiencies and proposes the consolidation of departments and quangos, reductions and rationalization of staff numbers.

The cause of the mess is a little more complicated than you portray with respect, the banks had a part to play, as did the regulators, as did the buyers (convinced they could make money from the “property ladder”), and of course rampant greed. There was reckless lending, there was reckless borrowing, and there was reckless regulating.

We then spent too much on government expenditure, while simultaneously eroding the tax base, and we relied on stamp duty (very exposed to a construction collapse). It was a property bubble bought into by too many greedy people (p.s. some of us didn’t buy into it, but are paying for it), when it burst it exposed the huge overspend on public services and the wasteful practices. There was an enormous expansion of the civil service between 200 – 2009 (87% in admin alone, ref: McCarthy report), some say politically motivated to garner support, some say as a political ploy to appease dissatisfied voters with the services they were receiving that money was being spent.

Now we have an annual deficit of 20bn as a result of all the above, and are bankrupt, no one will lend to us and we have the IMF and a bailout. The only way we can hope to survive is to balance our budget, which means reducing government expenditure, which is completely out of line with our tax take. Either that or increase corporation tax, but most people agree that would be a bad idea. Individual taxation cannot increase further without everyone with skills and merchantable talent moving to a easy european neighbor to escape being ripped off.

P.S. so far they only people who have paid for the crash so far are the ECB who have lent us the money to make repayments…..remember we have a deficit of 20bn before debts even come in the equation.
P.P.S. not offended at all, it is completely wrong, most employees provide a vital and money generating service to there employer. Once they cannot justify their salary or employment they loss their jobs…. simple as….no mercy….

Not a chance. After Bertie’s benchmarking and destruction of the country, public sector gravy train workers will invariably be better off. This notion that private sector workers are better off is ridiculous, not only are private sector workers paid less, they actually have to work for it.

I don’t get the thumbs down – it’s just a question…

I work in the public sector and I certainly don’t earn €900/week very far from it. I even get way less the the average private sector worker. Average earnings are not factual, if you take somebody in the public sector on a grade 3 position like me we only earn €400/week so that’s well below the €905 stated here.

Plus of course extra holidays, 10 days sick leave, defined benefit pensions, promotion on time served rather than merit or productivity, and job for life.
Apart from that stuff then.

@ Jim. Can you tell us which department promotes people based on time served please so us public sector workers can all put in for transfers. Thanks

Or 10 days sick leave, jim? You’re just making stuff up!

Unlikely that it covers anything other than base salary. The average income is a poor reflection of what people actually get paid because it’s skewed by unusually high or unusually low figures.

I would be far more interested in the median income, but you would need access to each individual salary to calculate it. I would bet it’s a good bit lower than €900 a week (which is about €75,000 p.a.).

if country of 4 mln needs 250,000 public servants to begin with, that’s already something not right there…

Well said Daniel, absolute joke.
Massive inefficiency.

I’m the first one to agree that we have a grossly overinflated public sector in all the wrong areas. Its also rigid with regards to work practices that result in inefficiency. But again, no one in the government is tackling this head on or at a local level.

Actually Daniel if you took the trouble to look up OECD figures you would learn that the public sector workforce in Ireland is very modest by international standards…

80% of people know you just made up that statistic

No he didn’t, read the article that is what the official statistics show.

Thanks Richard. Jay, I was merely expressing surprise that the average private sector worker earns €600 and odd and the average public sector worker makes €900 odd. Granted I didn’t whip out the calculator and the exact figures in the article probably means that it’s closer to 49.5% more than the private sector workers that the average public servant brings home. I am still surprised that the difference is so big, although I wonder if the private sector averages are brought down as there are probably more part time workers in private business.

You also have to compare like with like – the proportion of employees with a third level qualification is significantly higher in the public vs. the private sector….

Hi David, I left the private sector recently enough and became a CO in the Civil Service;
my salary private was over 2k per month with Options, Bonuses, the usual paid Xmas parties & summer BBQs , monthly lunches etc
As a CS I earn net less than 1600 a month; paid for my own xmas dinner, etc – there are NO perks for those at the bottom – believe me (if you want to – or not – up to you) .
The “average” is calculated by adding together the earnings by the number of staff so a clerical officer is lumped together with the Dept Secretary for example – however the difference is wage between the 2 is phenomenal e.g. CO 23k, Dept Sec (could be 230K) so the derived average is as far from reality for most of us

Thanks Sheila. I thought that might be the case