Which government departments could we do without?

Grimreaper666

There seem to be a lot of them that are just blowing taxpayer money and could really be done without or at least put on hold until things pick up in the economy. Desperate measures for desperate times and all that. Wouldn't it be nice for them to experience a bit of pain first hand for a change?

FunkZ

I believe before the HSE was formed there were four different health groups, and since it's formation they've kept on all four CEO. They could start by cutting that down a shade?

I could be wrong.

Black Swan

Foreign Affairs? We cannot afford "affairs" for our politicians until times get better.

Kimono-Girl

*insert standard AH reply*

all of them?

Arnold Layne

An Taoiseach and Finance since the EU (& possibly the IMF) control these

orourkeda

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

Foreign Affairs? We cannot afford "affairs" for our politicians until times get better.

In fairness the department of foreign affairs has its place.

johngalway

While we certainly can't do without it, the Dept of Ag. is most certainly over staffed. Too many bored types in there dreaming up nonsense!

Black Swan

orourkeda wrote: »

In fairness the department of foreign affairs has its place.

Perhaps they could hire former US president Bill Clinton to head the department? He has extensive experience in the conduct of "affairs."

Grimreaper666

orourkeda wrote: »

In fairness the department of foreign affairs has its place.

Yeah, in Siberia..........

Grimreaper666

johngalway wrote: »

While we certainly can't do without it, the Dept of Ag. is most certainly over staffed. Too many bored types in there dreaming up nonsense!

They're at that in most departments, the amount of red tape now is staggering, they've obviously never had to work in the real world.

rainbowtrout

FunkZ wrote: »

I believe before the HSE was formed there were four different health groups, and since it's formation they've kept on all four CEO. They could start by cutting that down a shade?

I could be wrong.

There were even more: 8 health boards reduced to 4 HSE administrative regions, don't think anyone lost their jobs though.

the purple tin

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZlBUglE6Hc

Son Of A Vidic

rainbowtrout wrote: »

There were even more: 8 health boards reduced to 4 HSE administrative regions, don't think anyone lost their jobs though.

An Irish solution to an Irish problem indeed, to be seen to be doing something - yet doing nothing!

PAULWATSON

Look, face facts.

You are the peasants, you pay the bills.

mp22

overseas aid save 6oo+ million

Atlantic Dawn

Office of Tobacco Control, this would save €2.5 million a year, they basically tell us what we already know, smoking is bad. The HSE should be respnsible for this instead.

KindOfIrish

Outsourcing is the solution. We can definitely outsource some of the Departments for much lower cost.

Nolanger

Department of Sport - what a waste of money!

CreepingDeath

The department of defence clearly, nobody is going to invade us now we're in the EU.

Marcus.Aurelius

Department of Equality, Community Affairs and the Gaeltacht (Just get rid of it!!)
Department of Agriculture, Fisheries & Food - Scrap the FSAI, the Aid/Grants section (outsource to EU)
Department of Tourism & Sport (Scrap)
Department of Defence (Scrap completely)
Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources (move to Finance)

Amalgamate Dept of Enterprise, Trade & Innovation with the Department of Education & Skills.

Sizzler

After Hours reader, I give you...

Bord Iascaigh Mhara....annual cost to joe taxpayer?

€120 m

Cost of offices for said quango as part of decentralisation?

€20 m

Do we really need to píss this level of money up against the wall to be told to eat fish? FFS.

We have a department of agriculture, get an intern in and let them look after this, same same.

Jesus Wept

Department of Defense.

bleg

Department of Health. It does nothing. Any time they're asked to account for anything they say "We are monitoring the situation but cannot issue any comment at this current time. That's a matter for the HSE."

the purple tin

Most of those depts are surplus. It's just jobs for the boys(or girls).

Ostrom

Education. 4 million has been saved since last year by abolishing the governing authority of the NUI. Sensible, graded introduction of fees with with long-term payment options would allow the state to devolve power to individual institutions. Which in turn would offer incentive to management to resist union intervention, remove deadweight, and instill some healthy competition. Save millions, reform administration, and offer fair terms to the high proportion of contract staff doing the groundwork.

starbelgrade

I don't think you can get rid of entire departments, but I definitely think that many need to be scaled down.. planning departments in County & Town Councils would be a big one.

I was in the Town Council planning office in Ballina the other day - they have about 15 full time staff working there. God knows what they are doing.. it's a relatively big town, but there's fuck all people making planning applications to justify that amount of staff.

mikerowsopht

I would get rid of the following departments in the following order:

Department Of Fisheries & Food
Department Of Communications, Energy & Natural Resources
Department Of Community, Equality & Gaeltacht Affairs
Department Of Defence
Department Of Education & Skills
Department Of Enterprise, Trade & Innovation
Department Of Environment, Heritage & Local Government
Department Of Finance
Department Of Foreign Affairs
Department Of Health & Children
Department Of Justice & Law Reform
Department Of Social Protection
Department Of Tourism, Culture & Sport
Department Of Transport
Department Of the Taoiseach

Then I would get rid of FF and jail them all.

I would force Mary Harney to have a stomach staple.
I would then export her stomach contents to Africa to save the poor.

Bertie - get a bank account
Cowen - get some accountancy skills and for gods sake get some plastic surgery - as a tax payer I am willing to cover this cost
Harney - loose some weight, you are our health minister u fat twat !!
Will O'Dea - stop pointing guns at people
Noel Dempsey - transport minister - get a driving license


I would get all the developers that legged it extradited
Once convicted I would have them anally-raped for the next 20 yrs

Let Anglo fall over, f**k em

blah, blah, rant, rant

rugbug86

I don't think there should be a loss in departments - just a cull in staff.

Most departments in most state/semi state organisations have a major surplus in staff. There's people sitting doing nothing all day long that get paid to do it, just because they can't be gotten-rid-of. Especially in admin.

So what I'd do is start with admin - cut the number of people working there by half. And take it from there. Take each department then on a case-by-case basis - some places, such as the dole office, need all the staff they can get because they're out the door busy, but others just don't need all the people that work there!

fatboypee

Ya know what (as the General Public) we should do tho (innit ) is as follows:

Create a review as part of the budget NOW to assess wastage in the public sector.
Step 1: Identify current Actual Service Levels.

Step 2: Make Every AO, SAO, EO & SEO + graded person list their duties and responsibilities.

Step 3: Make every person in every department that is deemed administrative re-apply for their jobs.

Step 5: Make every person in every department that is deemed administrative at ALL levels clock in and clock out.

Step 6: Review Stepped data to identify:

a) manning levels
b) duplicity / role overlap
c) activity cover

Step 6: Send a percentage of staff at each level home for 2 weeks paid leave and monitor each departments SLA drop.

Step 7: Review data obtained from step 6, identifying where reductions were required and as it comes to it, increases in staff.

I personally have experience of SEVERAL different public sector admin departments in terms of working closely with them. Overworked is certainly NOT a term I would associate with any of them, at any level...

R0ot

RSA.

Johnny Utah

R0ot wrote: »

RSA.

I already said that.....

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055973641




And from that thread:

RSA thread wrote: »

Number of Staff in RSA 170

Wages and expenses for 2009 were 5,436000 and 351000 respectively

Average Wage of someone working for the RSA in 2009 was E31,976. Average expenses were E2064

They spent 1609000 on capital expenditure e.g. road signs etc

They spent 55,948,000 on current expenditure e.g. advertising.

Total expenditure for 2009 was 66,189,000.

Expensive for some road safety adverts! :eek:

Snakeblood

Johnny Utah wrote: »

I already said that.....

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055973641




And from that thread:

Expensive for some road safety adverts! :eek:

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0520/1224270711390.html

And reducing the amount of road deaths by 42%.

There's probably savings to be made there, but that's a lot more people alive.

squod

Sports art and tourism. The only ''sports'' we have are ball games anyway, and the bleedin' GAA can look after them.

MagicSean

Defence. No need for it in a neutral country.

EDIT: And all groups dedicated to forcing Irish on people.

aDeener

squod wrote: »

Sports art and tourism. The only ''sports'' we have are ball games anyway, and the bleedin' GAA can look after them.

someone might want to inform paul hession and derval o'rourke about that :rolleyes:

amazing how there are so many here who are so clueless as to how important tourism is here....

SeaFields

aDeener wrote: »

amazing how there are so many here who are so clueless as to how important tourism is here....

And our idiot government decided to stick a €10 tax on it :rolleyes:

arybvtcw0eolkf

k_mac wrote: »

Defence. No need for it in a neutral country.
.

We've never really faced an external security threat.

SeaFields

Snakeblood wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0520/1224270711390.html

And reducing the amount of road deaths by 42%.

There's probably savings to be made there, but that's a lot more people alive.

The RSA wasn't mentioned once in that article. The reduction in deaths is attributed to "strict enforcement of road safety legislation" so the Garda Traffic Corps prob deserves the credit and the massive upgrading of our road network in recent years.

squod

aDeener wrote: »

someone might want to inform paul hession and derval o'rourke about that :rolleyes:

amazing how there are so many here who are so clueless as to how important tourism is here....

That's the point. The department is a ****. Completely not worth the money to run it. If anyone with any interest in sports works there I'd be entirely surprised. Ditto for tourism, people who know f-all about this country still know not to drink the water in Galway.

Sports art and tourism is fuhked. Get rid of it.

Rebelheart

efla wrote: »

Education. 4 million has been saved since last year by abolishing the governing authority of the NUI.

No, it hasn't. Next?

Rebelheart

k_mac wrote: »

EDIT: And all groups dedicated to forcing Irish on people.

Yeah, but let's continue to finance all groups who force English on Irish people. Yeah, the retardation of my being forced to learn those pompous English arseholes for my Leaving Cert just entirely escapes the anti-Irish brigade who really think that Irish is the only language "forced" on Irish people. Catch yourselves on for the love of sweet Jesus.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Have to go along with Dept of the Taoiseacht. What, exactly does it do, anyway?

Rebelheart

KindOfIrish wrote: »

Outsourcing is the solution. We can definitely outsource some of the Departments for much lower cost.

Yeah, let's just "outsource" the whole shagging lot to the Brits. They have such a record of superior governance over us native Irish (at least according to certain people on Boards.ie).

R0ot

Johnny Utah wrote: »

I already said that.....

And here's your prize:

galwayrush

Most of the advisors / quangos, apparently the Government have in excess of 1000 groups of them.:(

galwayrush

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Office of Tobacco Control, this would save €2.5 million a year, they basically tell us what we already know, smoking is bad. The HSE should be respnsible for this instead.

The HSE would probably cost more, the way they waste money.

th3 s1aught3r

I dont know if we can do without any departments but I would hazzard a guess that they are all overstaffed and overpaid, top to bottom

Brendog

theres so many unecessary government departments that we need...

I can't name any because they are so utterly useless

Johnny Utah

R0ot wrote: »

And here's your prize:

Sorry about this, but... eh, is there a cash prize with that award?

orourkeda

department of the gaeltacht