ETB cash to Interview Boards!

ethical

Was told by a friend down West that the local Newspaper published,under the Freedom of Information Act,the monies paid to Councillors sitting on Interview Boards and it is truly shocking.
One person has received €60k over the past 4 years!!!,yes €60,0000 cash for sitting on a Board to determine someones future and not knowing sweet fa about the person or the job they are interviewing for.

The ETB have yet to pay wages to some teachers ,in their employ since schools re opened in August this year and yet there is absolutely no problem to dish out cash to a serial Interview Board attendee who has a name in their top pocket.........and thats only the Councillors. Some of these Board members are on Gold Plated Pensions also.(They have ,obviously ,never heard of "giving something back" to a profession that has served them well.)

Credit to the Newspaper in question for bringing this to the attention of the Taxpayer! Public money and how it is (mis)spent.
This crap gives a bad name to education but who cares?

ethical

Its shocking,the amount of money wasted! It would keep a few teachers for a few years the way contracts are handed out to the newly qualifieds.

Obviously this business of handing over Tax payers money is very acceptable in Ireland .........................just wonder how many snouts are in the trough?

spurious

Do you have a link to this? What ETB was it?

bizidea

Shir its a mighty country lads ye actually seem a bit shocked by this half the country is on the gravy train

rainbowtrout

ethical wrote: »

Was told by a friend down West that the local Newspaper published,under the Freedom of Information Act,the monies paid to Councillors sitting on Interview Boards and it is truly shocking.
One person has received €60k over the past 4 years!!!,yes €60,0000 cash for sitting on a Board to determine someones future and not knowing sweet fa about the person or the job they are interviewing for.

The ETB have yet to pay wages to some teachers ,in their employ since schools re opened in August this year and yet there is absolutely no problem to dish out cash to a serial Interview Board attendee who has a name in their top pocket.........and thats only the Councillors. Some of these Board members are on Gold Plated Pensions also.(They have ,obviously ,never heard of "giving something back" to a profession that has served them well.)

Credit to the Newspaper in question for bringing this to the attention of the Taxpayer! Public money and how it is (mis)spent.
This crap gives a bad name to education but who cares?

I appreciate your sentiments ethical, but your posts are quite sensationalist.

Do I think county councillors should be on interview panels? No, I wouldn't let them within an asses roar of one if it was my choice.

However the money thing - whoever is sitting on the panel is getting paid to be there and will get expenses for travel, that will apply whether they are a county councillor or not.

You can't definitively state that all of them have a name in their top pocket. Pay for teachers and paying expenses to interview board members are two separate things. The fact that some teachers are still waiting for pay is horrendous, but it has nothing to do with the expenses someone was paid over the last four years. They are not connected in any way.

Which board members are on gold plated pensions? Are we still talking about the councillors or someone else? What exactly do they have to give back?

Which newspapers and ETB was it? Should be easy enough to put up a link to it. If people were paid their expenses for being on an interview panel then the money wasn't misspent. It might however call into question the use of county councillors rather than perhaps former or current school principals or similar who would have a better handle on the needs of the job.

TheDriver

Ethical: Do you think this is only in ETB schools? Members of interview panels in many differing types of schools get expenses etc.
Cash is also somewhat sensationalist as it implies that there is a tax fiddle going on. I am assuming the person received expenses through the vouched system.
Councillors can be tedious on panels but there is a difficulty getting people to sit on interview boards, particularly in peak season so you will find the same people sitting on numerous boards.

Pay to new teachers has no connection and can be for many various reasons: ETB issues or teacher paperwork issues.

Lastly: You claim the councillor knows nothing about the person: Isn't that what we want?

It would be helpful if you could name the newspaper that has published this non story?

ethical

https://www.con-telegraph.ie/.../4181522-interview-board-fees-paid-to-mayo -councillors-revealed/

rainbowtrout

So the guy that got paid the most didn't get paid 60K, he got paid €38k, an average of 9.5k per year. It also said that he sat on 40 boards per year on average.


So it says in 2018 he got paid €10,251. So divided between 40 sessions that €256. Allow for maybe 4 hours for interviewing candidates on average and factor in that mileage would be included too.

If I do a round trip to my ETB headquarters and included a lunch it would cost the ETB just over €100 in expenses for mileage and lunch. Doing that 40 times a year would cost €4000 before I did any work. I can see how expenses outlined above could easily add up over the course of a year.

EDIT: I just noticed that the 38K was before tax, so he didn't get that figure at all. Breakdown of taxable income and expenses is not given however.