Time to admit defeat, scrap the navy?

zone 1

750 people serving and 1 ship at sea....... hello

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121078068#Comment_121078068

How to demonstrate that you haven’t even read the thread… Goodbye.

Dohvolle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121078067#Comment_121078067

So you haven't read it then.

RavenP

Aside from what some have already pointed out, that you are approaching this from a position of complete ignorance, and have not read the thread, I will offer some explanation. Although there are 750ish current naval personnel not all sailors do the same job. There are a few key technical jobs which are so key that no ship can safely sail without them. These are highly skilled jobs, for which the private sector are prepared to pay very high wages for. They have poached naval service staff! The government would like to raise pay, but cannot easily, because it would cause a cascade of pay disputes across the public sector. It is trying to find workarounds. So there might be forty of the necessary forty five crew available for a ship, but if the missing five are certain jobs, the ship cannot sail.

Firblog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121079438#Comment_121079438

Yes, all very understandable, and if you'd read the whole thread I pointed out that paying certain people more would upset others - but while the govt are failing to fix the pay issue, the jobs the naval service are supposed to do are going undone - therefore scrap the system that isn't working and get one that can. Pay contractors - who aren't navy personnel - to fill the positions that the navy can't, same as we do for Doctors/Nurses etc; costs more but keeps the service running. But perhaps a lack of saluting by contractors would upset some hat wearing people?

RavenP

I wasn’t directing my comments at you Firbolg. That said…Problem with getting contractors is they object to their workers getting shot at. When you join the armed forces you potentially risk your life, most employers will baulk at the risk assessment or alternatively pull their workers when things got up. Or alternatively the contractor will not do what they are told and then you are faced with shooting down their plane, big hastle.

satguy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121078068#Comment_121078068

Yes , Bang on.

It's a total waste of tax payers hard earned money.

The secondhand rust buckets we own are useless,, and even when we can crew them would be of no use if some bigger country wished us harm.

The real truth is that we sit under the UK's very strong wing,, and since they occupied us for most of our history,, are well used to patrolling our waters to the west, and our north.

sparky42

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121082341#Comment_121082341

Apart from which one of the main reasons why the manpower levels are dropping is because the private sector. Trying to get contractors would be several times the costs no matter what. I mean hell the RFA is considering going on strike over pay in the U.K., but somehow it’s going to make sense to get private contractors to replace the Navy?

Firblog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121082341#Comment_121082341

Really? when was the last time anyone ever aimed more than 2 fingers at any naval personnel when on duty? You're probably much safer working on board a navy ship when at sea than you are travelling to and from your home to Haulbowline

Seriously though, people are on here saying that the wages need to be fixed, navy can't compete with the private sector to keep/attract people with certain skill sets? then acknowledge that any increase for those people would cause a cascade effect of 'parity' claims across the public service, so the govt can't increase those wages?

So what is your solution? There is no point in buying expensive hardware worth 100's of millions if there is nobody to operate them; that's fur coat and no knickers territory.

RavenP

I think that the government has to find a way of saying , and the backbone to say it, that people who sign up for the military are signing away more than other public servants it terms of commitment and possibly more (yes that is part of the job), and that that must be properly remunerated. On a wider level neo-liberalism has been shown to cost more than it saves and must be, mostly, ditched, from housing, energy security, transport, defence etc. Privatisation hasn’t worked that well that often and probably won’t work in the future.

Firblog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121086498#Comment_121086498

No my friend, perhaps you are young Padawan, there are too many examples of the state being absolutely crap at running any business for anything to be put back into their hands, - boat building, house building, telecoms, aviation, buses, ferries etc etc

Back on the issue of pay for skilled/expert crew in the navy, would it not be possible to hugely increase the at sea allowance? Nothing equivalent in the rest of the public service, so can't be claims for parity?

Dohvolle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121087467#Comment_121087467

It has already been shown that similar allowances given to other seagoing employees of the state far exceeds what the NS get, before tax.

It has also been shown that the fix would cost just €4m extra a year. The Minister for Justice just flung an extra €10m at the garda overtime budget because one tourist too many got mugged.

Thatcherism has succeeded nowhere. All that happens is private enterprise profiteering instead of providing an essential service.

Firblog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121087718#Comment_121087718

So now the thread is capitalism vs socialism? Profiteering? Posts and telegraphs vs Eircom/Vodafone/3/Tesco mobile etc? Used to take 3 years and a TD to get a private telephone in your house when the state was in charge, 750 people needed to put one boat to sea... time to cop on.

RavenP

Ha ha, I’m almost 67!

RavenP

On the allowance I agree, and cannot understand the delay.

regarding privatisation, been there, done it bought the t! It provides a short term boost but soon the private companies learn to game the system and it becomes increasingly inefficient. Those things that can easily be monitised, where there is a real product with real financial value should generally be in private hands, but those things where the value is essential not monitory should not be privatised. The military is a case in point. The need for a military is not one that can be reduced for mere money. Money can be made supplying it, but defending the state is beyond the pecuniary. Have a look across the water at their crumbling state and tell me that untrammelled privatisation is a good thing.

Dohvolle

Its happening at present with SAR. The unsuccessful bidder is throwing a strop and withdrawing service claiming H&S reasons.

Firblog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121087972#Comment_121087972

Aye, think we're going to have to agree to disagree on the whole state run good / private run bad thing on this thread. Can we agree that the way things are run at the minute the Navy is not fit for purpose and is poor value for money?

RavenP

Nothing wrong with civil disagreement! But something needs to be done, we agree on that!

Dohvolle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121088815#Comment_121088815

For something to be poor value for money implies that money is being spent in the first place.

Firblog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121089053#Comment_121089053

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121090039#Comment_121090039

So everyone serving and employed by the navy are working for nothing? Fuel costs nothing, no expenses for buildings, vehicles.. you live in a magical world.

Dohvolle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121090444#Comment_121090444

About as magical as the one where any money spent is too much.

We are going in circles here, you are both agreeing and disagreeing with yourself. Bored with you now.

greencap

maybe theres been a cultural shift in the last couple of decades which prioritizes only the productive capacity of a job. the intellectual part. the part which might render the most profit, or facilitate the most profit within the industrial system.

and dismisses the aspect of graft, discomfort, danger, toil, necessity. so that people doing important jobs, yet not necessarily profitable jobs, jobs which dont require high end qualifications can just be dismissed. Maybe the rule is 'doesn't increase industrial output, doesn't boost the bottom line, therefore ''unskilled'' therefore little respect'.

i dunno, just saw that comment about the cascade of pay demands if sailors pay is increased. it sounds like the root cause of such a logjam may be a sort of conceit, like this job doesn't require much in the way of professional qualification therefore its worth sht. because literally nothing else counts other than your education level. you have to live at sea? doesn't matter. you have to brave the elements, sorry doesn't affect net profit, therefore it can't matter.

how quickly the essential workers thing was forgotten.

just my sat night 2 beer brainfart.

i slump to be corrected.

Firblog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121090764#Comment_121090764

Bye Bye

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121090444#Comment_121090444

There comes a point where you get, in effect, a sustained reaction. It's not quite 'economy of scale', it doesn't really work that way, but it's a certain amount of expenditure that you actually get some good value for your money. I will agree with you that as it sits right now, the State's return is more ethereal than practical. However, it is not non-existent. The current situation at least maintains institutional knowledge and core capability. There are certain capabilities which remain needed if you have one ship or twenty. The paymasters, the procurement folks, the contract administrators, the hydrographers, naval engineers, logisticians, headquarters staff, whatever. This is, well, not constant, but scales on a sort of reverse exponential level. Going from 1 ship to 2 will cost proportionally more than going from 2 to 3, which is greatly more than going from 6 to 7 and so on.

However, terminating the naval staff because right now the Navy can crew few ships is a decision which is extremely hard to reverse, and would be extremely expensive to do so both in terms of dollar value and, importantly, time, which no practical amount of money can remedy. It is very arguably better to keep paying to keep the machinery ticking over so that value can be obtained by a slightly larger expenditure in the near future than to succumb to the false economy of letting the personnel go now in the hopes of some form of reversal of fortune in the distant future.