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Salary Top Ups

Comments

  • #2
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    It does come across as supremely hypocritical.


  • #3
    Phoebas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,371 ✭✭✭Phoebas


    Whatever about top ups to advisors, the FG top up to the party leader while in opposition is out of party, not public, money so is entirely up to them.


  • #4
    srsly78
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,157 ✭✭✭srsly78


    Phoebas wrote: »
    Whatever about top ups to advisors, the FG top up to the party leader while in opposition is out of party, not public, money so is entirely up to them.

    And it's exactly the same story with the HSE topups.... thus hypocrisy.


  • #5
    alastair
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,309 ✭✭✭✭alastair


    srsly78 wrote: »
    And it's exactly the same story with the HSE topups.... thus hypocrisy.

    It's definitely not exactly the same. It's the basic distinction between publically-funded and privately-funded. Same issue for those political advisors' top-ups back in 2011, completely different issue to Enda's FG salary bump.


  • #6
    rodento
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,728 ✭✭✭rodento


    alastair wrote: »
    It's definitely not exactly the same. It's the basic distinction between publically-funded and privately-funded. Same issue for those political advisors' top-ups back in 2011, completely different issue to Enda's FG salary bump.
    Enda Kenny's top up came from public money

    To quote the examiner

    Enda Kenny has insisted that Fine Gael was “100%” compliant with the law when paying him a top-up to his Dáil salary from public monies.

    The allowance is a form of state funding for parties in the Dáil which they use for parliamentary activities.

    So how is it different


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  • #7
    Phoebas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,371 ✭✭✭Phoebas


    rodento wrote: »
    Enda Kenny's top up came from public money

    To quote the examiner

    Enda Kenny has insisted that Fine Gael was “100%” compliant with the law when paying him a top-up to his Dáil salary from public monies.

    The allowance is a form of state funding for parties in the Dáil which they use for parliamentary activities.

    So how is it different
    It originated from public money, much like the pay of every public servant originates from public money.
    It was entirely up to FG what use they did with it thereafter.


  • #8
    rodento
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,728 ✭✭✭rodento


    Phoebas wrote: »
    It originated from public money, much like the pay of every public servant originates from public money.
    It was entirely up to FG what use they did with it thereafter.

    quote="Phoebas;87652078"]Whatever top ups to advisors, the FG top up to the party leader while in opposition is out of party, not public, money so is entirely up to them.[/quote]

    So top ups are fine if they are from from donations and there ok if the are from public money.... How is this different from what's happened at the HSE


  • #9
    Phoebas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,371 ✭✭✭Phoebas


    rodento wrote: »
    So top ups are fine if they are from from donations and there ok if the are from public money.... How is this different from what's happened at the HSE

    As I've explained, the top up to EK was out of private FG money.
    It may have originated as public money, but, like the salaries of public servants, once it was paid to the FG party, it was theirs to do with how they pleased.

    What happened in the HSE was substantially different. Not only was public money used for top ups, but those top ups weren't known to, never mind authorized by, the people with ultimate responsibility for the HSE budget.


  • #10
    rodento
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,728 ✭✭✭rodento


    I must be really slow today, can you please explain to me what the difference is because i just can't see it.

    The top up payments are from profits the charitable organizations make running shops/coffee shops/car parks etc... Some of it may have originated as public money, but, like the salaries of public servants, once it was paid to the charitable orginizations, it was theirs to do with how they pleased.


  • #11
    Phoebas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,371 ✭✭✭Phoebas


    rodento wrote: »
    I must be really slow today, can you please explain to me what the difference is because i just can't see it.

    The top up payments are from profits the charitable organizations make running shops/coffee shops/car parks etc... Some of it may have originated as public money, but, like the salaries of public servants, once it was paid to the charitable orginizations, it was theirs to do with how they pleased.

    Topping up these salaries breaches public pay policy. A political party topping up the salary of an opposition TD does not.

    Not only that, but the money was coming from the car parks / shops etc of institutions that are almost fully state funded. And the facts of where this money was going wasn't disclosed to the people who fund these institutions.

    So, some similarities, but lots of difference.


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  • #12
    rodento
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,728 ✭✭✭rodento


    If these top up deals are so bad why would ministers approve this deal two years ago

    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/pay-deal-approved-so-hospital-chief-would-not-lose-top-up-1.1601844

    Ministers approved a special annual pay deal of €195,000 two years ago to facilitate the transfer of a senior executive in the voluntary hospital sector into the mainstream HSE so he would not lose out on additional or top-up income he was earning.

    Also begs the question of what the government knew and when, if they sanctioned this deal two years ago


  • #13
    RichardAnd
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,796 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    Phoebas wrote: »
    Whatever about top ups to advisors, the FG top up to the party leader while in opposition is out of party, not public, money so is entirely up to them.


    It doesn't matter where the money originated. The point is that Kenny's asking others to refuse top ups is hypocritical. Further more, it's massively incompetent on a political level. If the man had an ounce of political intelligence (or intelligence in general), he would have refused such an offer and made such a refusal pubic.

    Once again, Kenny is handed a political victory only to p!ss it away. I sometimes wonder if the man has ever read a single politics book...


  • #14
    Phoebas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,371 ✭✭✭Phoebas


    RichardAnd wrote: »
    It doesn't matter where the money originated. The point is that Kenny's asking others to refuse top ups is hypocritical. Further more, it's massively incompetent on a political level. If the man had an ounce of political intelligence (or intelligence in general), he would have refused such an offer and made such a refusal pubic.

    Once again, Kenny is handed a political victory only to p!ss it away. I sometimes wonder if the man has ever read a single politics book...

    FG is a private party and is entitled to pay its party members what it likes.
    The hospitals are public bodies subject to public pay policy. The FG party is not.


  • #15
    rodento
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,728 ✭✭✭rodento


    Phoebas wrote: »
    FG is a private party and is entitled to pay its party members what it likes.
    The hospitals are public bodies subject to public pay policy. The FG party is not.

    If it is subject to a public pay policy than why did the department of public expenditure agree to regularise the top up payments to bill mahers salary outline in the link below in 2011

    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/pay-deal-approved-so-hospital-chief-would-not-lose-top-up-1.1601844


  • #16
    RichardAnd
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,796 ✭✭✭RichardAnd


    Phoebas wrote: »
    FG is a private party and is entitled to pay its party members what it likes.
    The hospitals are public bodies subject to public pay policy. The FG party is not.


    True, but that wasn't the point I was making.

    The majority of people will probably assume that FG's money comes from the taxpayer. Furthermore, the fact that Kenny received a pay top-up at all is politically dangerous when austerity is being implemented. The head of the government should be leading by example. Getting a pay rise and then excusing it by claiming that it came from the party is going to irritate a sizable amount of people because it reeks of a double standard.

    I'm not making any remark on the morality of the above. Al that I'm attempting to say is that Enda Kenny is a politically incompetent man.


  • #17
    Phoebas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,371 ✭✭✭Phoebas


    rodento wrote: »
    If it is subject to a public pay policy than why did the department of public expenditure agree to regularise the top up payments to bill mahers salary outline in the link below in 2011

    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/pay-deal-approved-so-hospital-chief-would-not-lose-top-up-1.1601844

    There's no if about it - they are subject to public pay policy. That means that people should be paid according to the pay scales and if there is a case to be made for a payment beyond that, then that is a decision to be made by a (publicly accountable) minister.


  • #18
    Phoebas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,371 ✭✭✭Phoebas


    RichardAnd wrote: »
    True, but that wasn't the point I was making.

    The majority of people will probably assume that FG's money comes from the taxpayer. Furthermore, the fact that Kenny received a pay top-up at all is politically dangerous when austerity is being implemented. The head of the government should be leading by example. Getting a pay rise and then excusing it by claiming that it came from the party is going to irritate a sizable amount of people because it reeks of a double standard.

    I'm not making any remark on the morality of the above. Al that I'm attempting to say is that Enda Kenny is a politically incompetent man.
    Kenny wasn't the head of the government when that top up was paid. When you're in Government, the Taoiseach, Ministers and various office holders get paid allowances for fulfilling those roles.
    Kenny got it when he was in opposition, when he got a normal TD salary from the state and the FG party paid him a top up as party leader to reflect the extra responsibility he had in that party role.


  • #19
    typow
    Registered Users Posts: 3 ✭typow


    Of course the political parties and their groupies will be claiming that it is legally within a party's rights to pay their members these additional salaries from monies that have been taken from the taxpayer and converted to private funds by law. That's the problem, its politicians who wrote this into law, its politicians who benefit, and when questioned, they can conveniently use this law, that they as politicians enacted, to evade public scrutiny and support the legality of their greed.

    The truth is this money was acquired from public funds, it will always be public funds in its origin, even sleight of hand laws can't change that truth. This is just the political class helping themselves to another salary at the expense of the rest of us, this is on top of the obscene wages, expenses and pensions that these charlatans have already managed to get their grubby mitts on.


  • #20
    rodento
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,728 ✭✭✭rodento


    Shane Ross is calling on the board of the central remedial clinic to resign after the Central Remedial Clinic used charity money to top up senior staff salaries.


    http://www.thejournal.ie/crc-resignation-shane-ross-top-ups-1197301-Nov2013/


  • #21
    hmmm
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,205 ✭✭✭✭hmmm


    If charity money was used, that's a disaster for every charity which relies on collections. I really hope this isn't the case.

    I stopped giving money to charities a while ago because of the salaries, but I'm not even going to so much as drop 10p into a bucket if this is proven to be true.


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  • #22
    ingalway
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 656 ✭✭✭ingalway


    I really think it's time that all not for profit organisations who are registered as charities and who are primarily funded by the HSE to provide services to the disability sector were looked at in detail as to how the funding is spent, how money raised by fundraising is spent, how much their executives are paid and how many receive top-ups/bonuses and where they come from?
    There seem to be so many of these organisations providing the same or very similar services all of them with CEO's and executive boards earning very high salaries. I'm sure the money used to pay the numerous CEO's and executives could be better spent in a more streamlined and efficient way to provide front line services for more disabled children/adults and respite services for their families.


  • #23
    nesf
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    RichardAnd wrote: »
    It doesn't matter where the money originated.

    It matters a great deal. I'd agree that what Kenny/FG did was extremely stupid and morally dubious but it's a long way from for example topping up executive pay with charitable donations aimed at increasing service provision (I imagine that's what those who donated were sold anyway). What FG did is above board, just terrible optics and sends completely the wrong message.


  • #24
    rodento
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,728 ✭✭✭rodento


    Ruairi Quinn now calling for them to go

    http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/ruairi-quinn-calls-for-crc-board-members-to-resign-over-topups-controversy-29796071.html

    Interesting to see how it'll effect donations this christmas and if many boards and exec's will be forced to go if two many people cancel charitable donations or stop giving on the streets.


  • #25
    COYW
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,930 ✭✭✭COYW


    hmmm wrote: »
    If charity money was used, that's a disaster for every charity which relies on collections. I really hope this isn't the case.

    Absolutely agree. Christmas time is peak time for charity fundraising and the thought of charitable donations being used to top-up salaries is going to leave a sizable hole in the donation pot. Many people will refuse to give a donation to their chosen charity/charities.

    I was listening to the radio earlier and a children's charity had an advert on informing people that all donations they receive go the children who need it.


  • #26
    rodento
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,728 ✭✭✭rodento


    Will be interesting to see if the government/HSE will have to fund the charitable organisations if all the donations dry up, could be an absolute disaster


  • #27
    Gloomtastic!
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,625 ✭✭✭Gloomtastic!


    No reaction from Michael Martin yet? Why haven't the journos been asking him for his opinion considering most of the Board are FF cronies.....


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