Public Sector Wages - some facts please

Tim Robbins

Hi,
I have been searching through Eurostat and google looking for a comparison of Irish public sector wages in comparison with other European countries, for example France, Germany etc.

Anyway have any good links?

Thanks.

WalterMitty

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Hi,
I have been searching through Eurostat and google looking for a comparison of Irish public sector wages in comparison with other European countries, for example France, Germany etc.

Anyway have any good links?

Thanks.

there isnt up to date stats AFAIK. In 2004 eurostat showed Ireland public servants on average were best paid of six major euro countries. Pay rates continued to rise at large pace after 2004 untill 2008 in public sector.
http://www.thepropertypin.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=16238&hilit=eurostat

http://www.politics.ie/economy/38595-david-mcwilliams-irish-public-sector-pay-eus-highest.html

I know a nurse starting in France gets around 20k basic and in Ireland its 32k basic. Irish consultants also earn 2-3 times as much as their Eu peers in Germany/uk/france.

Godge

The OECD does some work in the education sector on comparing salaries and terms and conditions. It produces a report every year on the subject.

http://www.oecd.org/document/52/0,3343,en_2649_39263238_45897844_1_1_1_1,00.html


I think the above link is to the latest one.

Generally, you will find that entry-level posts in Ireland - clerical officer, executive officer, nurse, guard, teacher, lecturer, fireman, prison officer, physiotherapist - are exceptionally well paid compared to their EU counterparts. This point is continually missed on boards and other public fora.

Similarly, at the very top, ministers, TDs, secretaries general, professors, chief executives are also very well paid by comparison.

In the middle, where we have some (emphasis on some) very poor management, the salaries are less good by comparison.

ei.sdraob

note: do remember that CSO stats on the public service also always exclude the health sector for some reason...


the fact that a citizen of this country is not able to access information about where his/her taxmoney goes and/or money borrowed in our name
illustrates one huge issue with the current system which could be changed, lack of transparency and information, which in turn breeds waste and corruption
its all very frustrating

20Cent

ei.sdraob wrote: »

note: do remember that CSO stats on the public service also always exclude the health sector for some reason...


the fact that a citizen of this country is not able to access information about where his/her taxmoney goes and/or money borrowed in our name
illustrates one huge issue with the current system which could be changed, lack of transparency and information, which in turn breeds waste and corruption
its all very frustrating

Try a freedom of information request for something you can't find.
All public service payscales are published on the web.

What annoys me is we aren't even told anything about NAMA or these bondholders we have just given billions to.

ei.sdraob

20Cent wrote: »

Try a freedom of information request for something you can't find.
All public service payscales are published on the web.
.

It shouldn't be that way, every single cent of expenditure should be logged and accessible to all

20Cent wrote: »

What annoys me is we aren't even told anything about NAMA or these bondholders we have just given billions to.

Its ok that annoys me too, just read my past posts on the subject here

20Cent

ei.sdraob wrote: »

It shouldn't be that way, every single cent of expenditure should be logged and accessible to all




Its ok that annoys me too, just read my past posts on the subject here

What can't you find out online?

ei.sdraob

20Cent wrote: »

What can't you find out online?

The total and up to date wage bill for all public, civil and state employees employed by the state and/or paid from the public purse.
Alongside with detailed department/section breakdown + number employed where and doing what.
Going back 10 years at least on a monthly basis.
Sprinkle on top data for people employed indirectly via Quangos and various schemes which would be affected if funds were to be cut.


And before you mention it, CSO are not up to date and exclude large sections such as the health services.

kippy

Yep, this data should be easily accessible (maybe not updated monthly but at least annually).
Not sure why you'd want to go as deep as to where each and every person is and what they do (not practical) but the other figures should be available.
The reason they are not is probably a case of lack of integration between all payroll systems in each of the departments and lack of wanting to make actual figures easily available.

I am a public servant - I dont particularily want the money I earn per year with my name and potentially my address being too easily accessible (I dont think many of us would) but I obviously dont have issues with larger chunks of data about wages made available.

Tim Robbins

kippy wrote: »

Yep, this data should be easily accessible (maybe not updated monthly but at least annually).
Not sure why you'd want to go as deep as to where each and every person is and what they do (not practical) but the other figures should be available.
The reason they are not is probably a case of lack of integration between all payroll systems in each of the departments and lack of wanting to make actual figures easily available.

I am a public servant - I dont particularily want the money I earn per year with my name and potentially my address being too easily accessible (I dont think many of us would) but I obviously dont have issues with larger chunks of data about wages made available.

Just looking for comparable roles. For example, nurse in Ireland, nurse in Germany. Teacher in Ireland, Teacher in Germany. Clerical worker Ireland, Clerical worker Germany.

The intent here is to try to have some sort of objective facts behind the proverbial public sector get paid too much / too little. If they get paid more than Germany that makes absolutely no economic sense. And our European neighbours are bound to take any pity on us.

The question is - are they?

LevelSpirit

Heres a fact.
If we can get the public sector to take as much cuts as possible then the rest of us wont have to suffer as much.

kippy

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Just looking for comparable roles. For example, nurse in Ireland, nurse in Germany. Teacher in Ireland, Teacher in Germany. Clerical worker Ireland, Clerical worker Germany.

The intent here is to try to have some sort of objective facts behind the proverbial public sector get paid too much / too little. If they get paid more than Germany that makes absolutely no economic sense. And our European neighbours are bound to take any pity on us.

The question is - are they?

There are a number of posts (some stickied I believe) that contain links to a number of reports/data on relevant sites containing that SORT of data.

HOWEVER and I said this in most posts I make on the topic.
If you want to compare countries such as Ireland and others you must compare everything across the board, not just relative public sector wages (something by the way that unions failed to do when trying to get more money out of the government at the time)

ei.sdraob

http://www.budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2010/Documents/whitepaperfin2010.pdf

Central Statistics Office budget went from 49,670,000 to 63,858,000

For the money being spend on this department we certainly are getting some very bad value for money. The opposition parties have been moaning lately also about lack of access to data and information.


Hows this for job creation give 1 million a year to 50 private companies (50 million)
to employ people who would audit, question and collect data from public bodies,
create and maintain databases,
and provide the data to anyone and everyone

as added bonus you could employ alot of people in these audit&report companies


the business plan:
for every euro of public money wasted or corrupted that these audit companies find the employees would receive 50% bonus and rest go back to public purse
Any organisation entrusted with money and power should be kept in constant check, the checks and balances would be provided by the private sector in pursuit of profit not more beuracrats.

hows that for transparency

kippy

Some data here:
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055750520
Not exactly what you are after however.

ei.sdraob,
Can you advise of a location on the interwebs (from another country) where the granular information you are requesting that this government make available about our public sector is available?

bryaner

Here we go again!

kippy

ei.sdraob wrote: »

http://www.budget.gov.ie/Budgets/2010/Documents/whitepaperfin2010.pdf

Central Statistics Office budget went from 49,670,000 to 63,858,000

For the money being spend on this department we certainly are getting some very bad value for money. The opposition parties have been moaning lately also about lack of access to data and information.


Hows this for job creation give 1 million a year to 50 private companies (50 million)
to employ people who would audit, question and collect data from public bodies,
create and maintain databases,
and provide the data to anyone and everyone

as added bonus you could employ alot of people in these audit&report companies


the business plan:
for every euro of public money wasted or corrupted that these audit companies find the employees would receive 50% bonus and rest go back to public purse
Any organisation entrusted with money and power should be kept in constant check, the checks and balances would be provided by the private sector in pursuit of profit not more beuracrats.

hows that for transparency

Are these the same auditors that have been missing glaring holes and massive irregularaties in the books of banks for the last number of years?
The private sector have been auditing private and public sector organisations for the past number of years.

I do agree, we do require auditing, but the systems you need to put in place to do this are nowhere near as simplified as you make them out to be, the last number of years have taught us that.

ei.sdraob

kippy wrote: »

Some data here:
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055750520
Not exactly what you are after however.

ei.sdraob,
Can you advise of a location on the interwebs (from another country) where the granular information you are requesting that this government make available about our public sector is available?

I do not know of any since i haven't looked for info on other countries
But the likes of Obama have made alot of noise about more transparency (whether it will materialize is another issue)

In order to make decisions and for people to keep their governments in check everyone needs more information. Right now the current government can lie an do lie to the people of this country regularly, and get away with it.

An informed populace in theory would make better choices in a democratic system (See Lisbon) and keep the people they elect in check and off the waste and corruption trail, that is something that some politicians do not like the sound of.

Richard tea

It would also be important to take into account the price for daily consumables (bread,milk) and working conditions ( annual leave, sick pay, maternity leave etc etc:rolleyes:)

kippy

ei.sdraob wrote: »

I do not know of any since i haven't looked for info on other countries
But the likes of Obama have made alot of noise about more transparency (whether it will materialize is another issue)

In order to make decisions and for people to keep their governments in check everyone needs more information. Right now the current government can lie an do lie to the people of this country regularly, and get away with it.

An informed populace in theory would make better choices in a democratic system (See Lisbon) and keep the people they elect in check and off the waste and corruption trail, that is something that some politicians do not like the sound of.

Perhaps you should find have a quick look. I would wager that that level of access/granularity is exceptionally rare.
Obama (and most politicians) speak a lot about transparency, especially in the current climate. It is unlikely the transparency will go down to the levels you are looking for due to many practical reasons.

Despite the last number of months, I dont think you've managed to see the big picture.
Ultimately as an electorate we either:
1. Dont care about corruption/shading dealings.
2. Are too afraid to do anything about it.

No mater how much accountability we push on them, these two facts have become blatently obvious of late.

ei.sdraob

kippy wrote: »

Are these the same auditors that have been missing glaring holes and massive irregularaties in the books of banks for the last number of years?

Our financial regulator is not a private entity, they still to this day rely on the banks reporting to them and not lying (yeh like they never do that)

kippy wrote: »

I do agree, we do require auditing, but the systems you need to put in place to do this are nowhere near as simplified as you make them out to be, the last number of years have taught us that.

Provide a reward for the auditors to keep a % of any waste they find, problem solved. Fire anyone responsible for the waste.

ei.sdraob

kippy wrote: »

Perhaps you should find have a quick look. I would wager that that level of access/granularity is exceptionally rare.
Obama (and most politicians) speak a lot about transparency, especially in the current climate. It is unlikely the transparency will go down to the levels you are looking for due to many practical reasons.

Despite the last number of months, I dont think you've managed to see the big picture.
Ultimately as an electorate we either:
1. Dont care about corruption/shading dealings.
2. Are too afraid to do anything about it.

No mater how much accountability we push on them, these two facts have become blatently obvious of late.

1. put that to a democratic vote, lets have a referendum on whether or not have more transparency (anyone who doesnt show up and vote will have their tax credits removed and they can pay for waste directly then they might care about waste and corruption)

2. what can people do about it? (rioting and burning cars wouldn't get us far), we are being denied a vote (the by-elections), change should happen at the ballot box.

kippy

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Our financial regulator is not a private entity, they still to this day rely on the banks reporting to them and not lying (yeh like they never do that)





Provide a reward for the auditors to keep a % of any waste they find, problem solved. Fire anyone responsible for the waste.

So you think the financial regulator is the only "auditor" who has been looking at the banks the past ten years?
He is the regulator (Yes, that office has been at major fault) but ALL of the banks and most of the public sector organisations have been audited by private sector auditors for years.........the banks have been audited by "third parties" for years.

I love your simplified thinking.

kippy

ei.sdraob wrote: »

1. put that to a democratic vote, lets have a referendum on whether or not have more transparency

2. what can people do about it? (rioting and burning cars wouldn't get us far), we are being denied a vote (the by-elections), change should happen at the ballot box.

A referendum on more transparency. You do realise the legal reasoning for referenda?

People can do plenty about it should they not suffer from either condition.

GO TO THEIR LOCAL POLITICANS, THEIR CLINICS, EMAIL THEM, WRITE TO THEM AND MAKE THEIR FEELINGS KNOWN.
SORT IT OUT OR LOSE A VOTE.
Politicians ultimately care about votes, enough people ask for change, change WILL happen.

Keyboard warriors like us, change very little sadly, best interests at heart or not.

ei.sdraob

kippy wrote: »

So you think the financial regulator is the only "auditor" who has been looking at the banks the past ten years?
He is the regulator (Yes, that office has been at major fault) but ALL of the banks and most of the public sector organisations have been audited by private sector auditors for years.........the banks have been audited by "third parties" for years.

I love your simplified thinking.

They were audited by entities who are easy to pay off (under the table) to give an all clear.
In case of rating agencies it was in the interest of these agencies to give junk good rating to earn more money.

All of these scenarios could be easily prevented.

kippy

ei.sdraob wrote: »

They were audited by entities who are easy to pay off (under the table) to give an all clear.
In case of rating agencies it was in the interest of these agencies to give junk good rating to earn more money.

All of these scenarios could be easily prevented.

Are you suggesting there was:
A - Gross negligence
B - Fraud
in the audit process of these entities?

Well fcuk me pink - call the freaking cops!
Why werent they prevented by the way?

ei.sdraob

i am not sure why you attacking me for asking for more accountability and data

god forbid someone suggests that more transparency and change is required in the current system

all of the issues you raised stem back to lack of transparency and corruption yet you think there is no point in reform.

kippy

ei.sdraob wrote: »

i am not sure why you attacking me for asking for more accountability and data

god forbid someone suggests that more transparency and change is required in the current system

I amn't attacking anyone.
I am asking for a bit of logic, a bit of common sense and a bit of straight forward reasoning instead of acting like the politicans of this world and trying to be popular.

We have an electorate that very plainly dont care enough.

You've said yourself that there were "dodgy" dealings in the banks for years. No one cared, nothing to do with transparency. We as an electorate kept electing people that stood for these "ideals" and we continued to do so. We will probably elect another 30-40 of them next time round as well.

ei.sdraob

kippy wrote: »

I amn't attacking anyone.
I am asking for a bit of logic, a bit of common sense and a bit of straight forward reasoning instead of acting like the politicans of this world and trying to be popular.

We have an electorate that very plainly dont care enough.

How do you know how the electorate are feeling? the one way to find out is elections, but we are being denied that....

They might not care now but wait till hospitals start to close and schools fall apart (I am from Galway too so you know exactly what I am talking about) and then point out to these people {politely} that they are where they are because of who they voted for and not holding the politicians in check.

Maybe they would start to care then, in meantime its 20:13 and i still have work to do (hmm in order for more of my hard earned €s to be taxed and wasted )

kippy

ei.sdraob wrote: »

How do you know how the electorate are feeling? the one way to find out is elections, but we are being denied that....

They might not care now but wait till hospitals start to close and schools fall apart (I am from Galway too so you know exactly what I am talking about) and then point out to these people {politely} that they are where they are because of who they voted for and not holding the politicians in check.

Maybe they would start to care then, in meantime its 20:13 and i still have work to do (hmm in order for more of my hard earned €s to be taxed and wasted )

The electorate can very easily go to their local politicans (be they councilors or TD's) and make it very clear how they feel and what they want to see changed.
Elections are only one voice the people have, they have other means of communicating with the THE PEOPLE WHO REPRESENT THEM.
I do agree, they will care eventually. Some point will come where they will care but it is TOO LATE then. It really is.
The time to care was in the past 10 years when we, as an electorate and population could have guided our politicians into making decisions that would stand to use as a country in the long term.
Too late now to be honest - we've all got to pay for the waste. So long as we ALL pay, I have no issues.

ParkRunner

ei.sdraob wrote: »

The total and up to date wage bill for all public, civil and state employees employed by the state and/or paid from the public purse.
Alongside with detailed department/section breakdown + number employed where and doing what.
Going back 10 years at least on a monthly basis.
Sprinkle on top data for people employed indirectly via Quangos and various schemes which would be affected if funds were to be cut.


And before you mention it, CSO are not up to date and exclude large sections such as the health services.

Will this answer your question?

http://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2010-06-09.291.0&s=number+public+servants+breakdown#g292.0.q

On a related note the amount of resources which are spent on FOI's, PQ's, Oireachtas Queries etc while necessary, is excessive. Time spent answering these queries is time spent away from engaging in real reform! We just can't please everyone

senordingdong

kippy wrote: »

Are you suggesting there was:
A - Gross negligence
B - Fraud
in the audit process of these entities?

Well fcuk me pink - call the freaking cops!
Why werent they prevented by the way?

Surely there must be some mistake...

ei.sdraob

EF wrote: »

Will this answer your question?

http://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?id=2010-06-09.291.0&s=number+public+servants+breakdown#g292.0.q

On a related note the amount of resources which are spent on FOI's, PQ's, Oireachtas Queries etc while necessary, is excessive. Time spent answering these queries is time spent away from engaging in real reform! We just can't please everyone

If the data was collected, organised and presented efficiently in the first place they wouldn't be wasting any time.

CSO are being paid the better part of 60 million, for that money a private company (or several for that matter) would be able to much better gather, question, analyse, store and display the data from various bodies.

Grasp and use of basic IT technologies is not something our bureaucrats have, maybe they should put their money where their mouth is and let the "smart" economy of theirs handle the data collection and distribution for the benefit of the country.

Riskymove

ei.sdraob wrote: »

If the data was collected, organised and presented efficiently in the first place they wouldn't be wasting any time.

so? every possible combination of data should be presented in a massive publication to try and please everyone?

so you dont have to look up 3 tables instead of one or whatever?

btw...some of what you want goes well beyond statistics into performance review etc...

Originally Posted by EF
Will this answer your question?

http://www.kildarestreet.com/wrans/?...kdown#g292.0.q

some of those figures should be up in lights

17,000 in managemnent and admin out of 107,000 in the HSE??

so much for 'more managers than frontline'

blue_morpho

ei.sdraob wrote: »

If the data was collected, organised and presented efficiently in the first place they wouldn't be wasting any time.

CSO are being paid the better part of 60 million, for that money a private company (or several for that matter) would be able to much better gather, question, analyse, store and display the data from various bodies.

Grasp and use of basic IT technologies is not something our bureaucrats have, maybe they should put their money where their mouth is and let the "smart" economy of theirs handle the data collection and distribution for the benefit of the country.

CSO budget is jumping for next year because there is a census in 2011 and therefore a requirement to recruit around 5000 people on a temporary basis (census enumerators and field staff) as well as other associated extra costs.

I would also be very surprised if it was possible to get a private company to collect, process and publish ALL of the data required by the State for the price mentioned. As an example, the CAO is a private company which on behalf of the state deals with one specific data collection and processing task per annum...operating costs for this one task were in the region of 3.3 million in 2009.

There seems to be a school of thought here that private contractors are some sort of "silver bullet" solution to the public sectors problems, and that by employing these private contractors we would immediately eliminate all waste and inefficiency....Looking around at examples in other countries, I think there is a lot of evidence to show that outsourcing\privatisation is not always the answer (for example, do people really think that the healthcare "industry" in the US is a good model, or that the current relationship between many national governments and enormous private defence contractors is a healthy and efficient one? ).

Also, once a contract of that size has been handed to a private company, the company then has the State "over a barrel" in the sense that it can increase the price for providing the service....even if a set price is built into a contract for a number of years (which can also turn out to be bad value-for-money for the state, imagine for example if the state had outsourced something like the social welfare system at the height of the boom in 2006 at a set price for 10 years, even though costs have reduced very significantly since then), the process of negotiating the price and time frame for any minute system changes can become torturous once a profit motive had been introduced....not really the hyper-efficient utopia that some people seem to think!!

Tim Robbins

kippy wrote: »

There are a number of posts (some stickied I believe) that contain links to a number of reports/data on relevant sites containing that SORT of data.

HOWEVER and I said this in most posts I make on the topic.
If you want to compare countries such as Ireland and others you must compare everything across the board, not just relative public sector wages (something by the way that unions failed to do when trying to get more money out of the government at the time)

It is perfectly valid to compare with countries we share the exact same currency with.

kippy

Tim Robbins wrote: »

It is perfectly valid to compare with countries we share the exact same currency with.

Indeed.

You are comparing public sector salaries. My point is if you compare that you should also compare taxation levels and any government based expenditure and income streams as well.

rebel.ranter

Outsourcing is not always a good solution. It's fine if you are doing the same task over & over again with little need for change.
It's when the need for change or additional tasks to be taken on that things go pear-shaped. Costs then hemorage out of control.

Tim Robbins

kippy wrote: »

Indeed.

You are comparing public sector salaries. My point is if you compare that you should also compare taxation levels and any government based expenditure and income streams as well.

Why?

You cannot justify an engineer, nurse, consultant being paid 20% (or whatever it is) extra here just because of there are slight differences in taxation or other government income streams. What about pensions as well?

I am trying to be nice comparing salaries to other Euro states. If you want the real hard world realities, you pay as little as you can until people start leaving and won't work for you. This is the way it is in the real private sector. By "real" I mean non banking, non monopoly. Where businesses have to compete and go out of business if they aren't very good at managing costs.

kippy

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Why?

You cannot justify an engineer, nurse, consultant being paid 20% (or whatever it is) extra here just because of there are slight differences in taxation or other government income streams. What about pensions as well?
There are major difference in the way other countries are run.

I am trying to be nice comparing salaries to other Euro states. If you want the real hard world realities, you pay as little as you can until people start leaving and won't work for you. This is the way it is in the real private sector. By "real" I mean non banking, non monopoly. Where businesses have to compete and go out of business if they aren't very good at managing costs.

The differences in taxation and other income/expenditure streams as well as "per head" figures are completely different in other countries. Why compare apples and oranges?
(for example retirement age is 60 in France, something the government are trying to push up)

So a race to the bottom then? Is that what you suggest? If that were the case what is the point of the:
Minimum wage?
I've never lived in Germany and only briefly lived in the States. I dont particularily want a lot of the systems they have in the states replicated here.
Germany is apparently the "idol" to which all economies should aspire to - but if that is the case we must also push up our taxes to fall in line with theirs.

Let me tell you one thing. A complete review of the increments system and how "PDS" is implemented would make a huge difference to:
A. The cost.
B. The efficiency.
Of the public sector, right across the board.
Comparing apples and oranges wont.

If you want to see people take on more pay cuts in the public sector, I suggest that you keep this to high earners (over 40 or 50K only) as people under that wage would probably consider the dole (which also needs to be cut)

Gumbo

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Why?

You cannot justify an engineer, nurse, consultant being paid 20% (or whatever it is) extra here just because of there are slight differences in taxation or other government income streams. What about pensions as well?

I am trying to be nice comparing salaries to other Euro states. If you want the real hard world realities, you pay as little as you can until people start leaving and won't work for you. This is the way it is in the real private sector. By "real" I mean non banking, non monopoly. Where businesses have to compete and go out of business if they aren't very good at managing costs.

but you have to compare cost of living too, rent, cars, car insurance, home insurance is way over prced in Eire compared to other countries. and thats only the tip of the ice berg.

gleep

kippy wrote: »

I amn't attacking anyone.
I am asking for a bit of logic, a bit of common sense and a bit of straight forward reasoning instead of acting like the politicans of this world and trying to be popular.

We have an electorate that very plainly dont care enough.

You've said yourself that there were "dodgy" dealings in the banks for years. No one cared, nothing to do with transparency. We as an electorate kept electing people that stood for these "ideals" and we continued to do so. We will probably elect another 30-40 of them next time round as well.

Berie Ahern is still a TD

'Nuff Said

LevelSpirit

The problem here is that nobody is prepared to take any cuts. Both public and private sector.
What we need is for everybody working no matter what the sector to pay more. How do we do that. Bring our taxes into line with the rest of Europe - since we want to compare apples with apples.

We get off so lightly tax wise when compared with the other countries in the eurozone. Look up the stats on that and then try to justify our low taxation.

The amount of us in this country who pay no tax or are on the low rate is obscene.

Quick example :
£20000 = £1,310 per month take home uk
€22880 = €1738 (£1520) per month take home Ireland

So for the same salary the Irish tax payer ends up with €2880 more a year in their pocket that the UK guy doesnt have.
So lets stop whining here and get real. We pay feck all tax. Trying to load the burden onto "the rich" or "the public sector worker" is just smoke and mirrors. There is plenty of room for us ALL to pay a hell of a lot more tax.

The country is broke because too many people are subsidized by those who pay a decent amount of tax. I have to laugh when I hear someone who only pays a couple of hundred euro tax a month complaining about where our tax is going, when they dont pay enough to support their own footprint even.

So stop crying about other peoples wages or jobs and suck it up yourself.

Tim Robbins

kceire wrote: »

but you have to compare cost of living too, rent, cars, car insurance, home insurance is way over prced in Eire compared to other countries. and thats only the tip of the ice berg.

With respect. Incredible naive.

You really think the markets go: "Oh look poor Ireland has a high cost of living we must take that into account and reduce their interest rates"?

Tim Robbins

kippy wrote: »

So a race to the bottom then? Is that what you suggest?

No I am saying we have to grow up and face up to the reality of living in a single currency zone. It's just very simple basic economics.

Exchange rates are proportional to interest rates are proportional to inflation. You give up exchange rates you loose control and you simply have to have your economy in line with the rest of your currency zone or it does not make sense. That's why things like a stability pact were agreed. If countries keep violating it the currency fails. Even if Ireland gets back to 3% by 2014, it will mean it has broken it for 6 years. You think that doesn't put the currency (and hence the entire euro zone) under pressure well then I hate to say you are in la la land. You think Germans are prepared to let Ireland risk ruining the Euro and pay its nurses, teachers more than what they get paid there? Again la la land.

I'll fight and fight for good social values, I'll give my free time for volunteer work whenever I can but I refuse to live in ignorance of economic realities.

kippy

Tim Robbins wrote: »

No I am saying we have to grow up and face up to the reality of living in a single currency zone. It's just very simple basic economics.

Exchange rates are proportional to interest rates are proportional to inflation. You give up exchange rates you loose control and you simple have your economy in line with the rest of your currency zone or it does not make sense. That's why things like a stability pact was agreed. If countries keep violating it the currency fails. Even if Ireland gets back to 3% by 2014, it will mean it has broken it for 6 years. You think that doesn't put the currency (and hence the entire euro zone) under pressure well then I hate to say you are in la la land. You think Germans are prepared to let Ireland risk ruining the Euro and pay its nurses, teachers more than what they get paid there? Again la la land.

I'll fight and fight for good social values, I'll give my free time for volunteer work whenever I can but I refuse to live in ignorance of economic realities.

One thing you will find, if you have a read through some of my posts is that I am not "IGNORANT" of economic realities.
My net take home pay has had significant reductions and will see further significant reductions and my productivity has had to increase to replace recently retired members of staff in my organisation who are not going to be replace in the short term. (I work in IT support btw and can see numerous areas for cost savings outside of wages both in the IT area and indeed areas in general in the public service)

You know what really annoys me though? Those at manager and assistant manager level in the public service. The majority of who, I have to say havent gotten a clue:
A. How to manage people.
B. How to manage budgets.

Unions and extreme union behaviour also annoy me, as does the increment system.


If you want to increase productivity and cut costs I've given you the basics to get there.

Why are you asking for reports comparing our wages with other countries when it is plainly obvious your mind has been made up?

Lala land in this country is inhabited by all of us.
We voted these shower in year after year and allowed them to increase our "living standards" without taking into account the long term view.

And those inhabitants include you and me - whether you voted for them or not.
We let it happen.

Tim Robbins

kippy wrote: »

Why are you asking for reports comparing our wages with other countries when it is plainly obvious your mind has been made up?

Because I think it's very easy to bash the public sector and their pay based on anecdotes. I'd like to see some hard facts on what they get paid in other euro zone countries.

Lala land in this country is inhabited by all of us.
We voted these shower in year after year and allowed them to increase our "living standards" without taking into account the long term view.

And those inhabitants include you and me - whether you voted for them or not.
We let it happen.

True. This generation has become de - politicised. We love moaning but very few will get involved, tog out and get involved in politics.

It's not just about voting.

kippy

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Because I think it's very easy to bash the public sector and their pay based on anecdotes. I'd like to see some hard facts on what they get paid in other euro zone countries.


True. This generation has become de - politicised. We love moaning but very few will get involved, tog out and get involved in politics.

It's not just about voting.

Indeed it is, you already have come to the conclusion that the public sector are paid too much, what difference do statistics make (btw there were numerous posts over the past two years, all with statistics outlining how well paid in comparison to our neighbours we are)

Our most powerful weapon in peace times is out vote.
Not enough people vote or use their vote wisely. Make those guys we give the power to work for our vote in the manner we want them to work.

ei.sdraob

Riskymove wrote: »

so? every possible combination of data should be presented in a massive publication to try and please everyone?

so you dont have to look up 3 tables instead of one or whatever?

btw...some of what you want goes well beyond statistics into performance review etc...

Erm yes a properly designed database can be extremely powerful and useful, as the likes of Google would tell you.

I on a daily basis have to work with huge amounts of data (20TB and growing rapidly) and write code to colelct it, organise it, process it and provide to end users.If me and few employees can do work on this scale profitably then why does a public organisation with such a large budget produces such poor results?

Riskymove wrote: »

some of those figures should be up in lights

17,000 in managemnent and admin out of 107,000 in the HSE??

so much for 'more managers than frontline'

That's quite a large number of admin staff! here is a question

why cant all the admin functionality be outsourced to private companies, I am sure there is plenty of redundancy and waste especially in areas like IT (hello PPARS)

blue_morpho wrote: »

CSO budget is jumping for next year because there is a census in 2011 and therefore a requirement to recruit around 5000 people on a temporary basis (census enumerators and field staff) as well as other associated extra costs.

I would also be very surprised if it was possible to get a private company to collect, process and publish ALL of the data required by the State for the price mentioned. As an example, the CAO is a private company which on behalf of the state deals with one specific data collection and processing task per annum...operating costs for this one task were in the region of 3.3 million in 2009.

There seems to be a school of thought here that private contractors are some sort of "silver bullet" solution to the public sectors problems, and that by employing these private contractors we would immediately eliminate all waste and inefficiency....Looking around at examples in other countries, I think there is a lot of evidence to show that outsourcing\privatisation is not always the answer (for example, do people really think that the healthcare "industry" in the US is a good model, or that the current relationship between many national governments and enormous private defence contractors is a healthy and efficient one? ).

Also, once a contract of that size has been handed to a private company, the company then has the State "over a barrel" in the sense that it can increase the price for providing the service....even if a set price is built into a contract for a number of years (which can also turn out to be bad value-for-money for the state, imagine for example if the state had outsourced something like the social welfare system at the height of the boom in 2006 at a set price for 10 years, even though costs have reduced very significantly since then), the process of negotiating the price and time frame for any minute system changes can become torturous once a profit motive had been introduced....not really the hyper-efficient utopia that some people seem to think!!

I bet the likes of Google would be delighted to collect, organise and present all this data for free (they in turn get access to valuable information to make money off) ...
Some countries are already moving toward electronic census collection.

ei.sdraob

kippy wrote: »

Indeed it is, you already have come to the conclusion that the public sector are paid too much, what difference do statistics make (btw there were numerous posts over the past two years, all with statistics outlining how well paid in comparison to our neighbours we are)

all of the discussion on the public sector often involve out of date figures or CSO who exclude the likes of the health service from their stats

the OP is being very reasonable in asking for better information.

Tim Robbins

kippy wrote: »

Indeed it is, you already have come to the conclusion that the public sector are paid too much, what difference do statistics make (btw there were numerous posts over the past two years, all with statistics outlining how well paid in comparison to our neighbours we are)

Because I like some substance to my opinions. And logic would also tell me that things aren't so simple. There's probably elements of the public sector under paid.

Our most powerful weapon in peace times is out vote.
Not enough people vote or use their vote wisely. Make those guys we give the power to work for our vote in the manner we want them to work.

The quality of TDs is pretty poor because an entire generation are practically de - politicised. Like him or loath him Leo V is one of the few young politicians that sounds like he has a brain.

Anyone else of that generation with a brain avoided politics.

We deride the political system as we deride the catholic church. But democracy can be changed. That's the hole idea.

Riskymove

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Erm yes a properly designed database can be extremely powerful and useful, as the likes of Google would tell you.

my point is that the information you want is available

That's quite a large number of admin staff! here is a question

why cant all the admin functionality be outsourced to private companies, I am sure there is plenty of redundancy and waste especially in areas like IT (hello PPARS)

you need to think through what admin and management represents

outsource management in each health clinic, hospital etc? outsource the clinic manager/receptionist/secretary?

catering, IT etc fine...but also realise that outsourcing will still cost

also 'I am sure' is not the kind of evidence-based decision making we need...but unfortunately its usually what we get

I bet the likes of Google would be delighted to collect, organise and present all this data for free (they in turn get access to valuable information to make money off) ...
Some countries are already moving toward electronic census collection.

given the debacle over electronic voting I doubt this would happen here