Roger Hassenforder wrote: » most of the admin monkeys you're dealing with at a front counter would be Clerical Officer grade, paid a lot less than the average industrial wage. When did we privatise water? Get off your ars3 and get a job, just because th made life difficult for you in the dole office doesnt mean they're all on a sinecure.
Ajsoprano wrote: » But surely a discussion involves more than one side giving an opinion and one man shouting bollox followed by all his friends shouting bollox
Ajsoprano wrote: The more I think of it the more I like it.
Birneybau wrote: » Here's what's bollox. You're talking (and I think you may be on a wind up) about putting a critical, tax funded service into the hands of private entities and you expect to be taken seriously?
doolox wrote: » I thought it was a good idea when applied to various types of enterprises such as transport and Health care but drew the line when British wanted to apply it to prisons. There is a limit to what can be achieved by a private company on a competitive tender subject to a limited term and all the insecurity that entails. I could foresee prison break outs increasing and also prisoner abuse and violence by staff against prisoners and violence between inadequately supervised prisoners increasing as the private companies would try to cut corners to cut costs and keep their contracts and also to get more profit from the setup. A similar thing would happen if social welfare provision was privatised. Social Welfare is not simply about providing money to a certain category of people but is also about providing ancillary supports to those who need them, and liaising with various bodies such as health, education and training and job seeking bodies to reach certain goals. A social welfare officer also needs to be able to deal with police and prison officials when dealing with some of their clients and need to be able to tell when they are being lied to or defrauded by members of the general public. On the other hand, compassion and skill are needed to identify and empathise with the genuine cases. Other areas where public and private organisations interface tend to work out in favour of the private organisation and the public organisation has to repair the damage done and pick up the pieces when the bad things happen. Private prisons in the US, for example had to call in the Police when things went pear shaped and riots occurred, no compensation was ever paid for their negligence and having to be bailed out by the police for work they should have been able to handle with their own internal staff. A similar thing could happen with a privatised Social Welfare system if the government were to pay over a giant premium to some corporation to cover the risk of unemployment etc in the general population, the company might pocket an inordinate amount of money and the government may have to pay up again for the same risk.
Ajsoprano wrote: » Thanks for your reasoned response. The way I see it there will be a few necessary jobs that are public in the social welfare system. Initially I said 1 job but you are right maybe 1 in each constituency. These staff members would look after checking on the private services making sure the genuine cases are looked after.
Ajsoprano wrote: » We have a bloated service full of job for lifers offering the same courses that were offered in the 70s.
Ajsoprano wrote: » There was a self employed fella on a scheme the other day charging minimum wage minus cleaning products wondering why his business wasn’t working. He was told to take on more staff. It’s not good enough.
Ajsoprano wrote: » A minister for social protection could oversee a few interns to watch over the private companies.
Ajsoprano wrote: » As much as an opposer I am to these schemes would it be kind of poetic if the staff that backed these schemes ended up on them. I think this dept being privatized would save the tax payer a fortune.
Roger Hassenforder wrote: » You havent really thought this through...
mikemac2 wrote: » The spitefulness just drooling from your post OP The counter staff are clerical officers and and not highly paid. They don’t back any schemes, they just follow the instructions. You make it sound like Mary at Tullamores welfare office counter makes the decisions and you want her terms and conditions slashed to get your own miserable level. If you have a problem with a scheme take it up with the minister
Ajsoprano wrote: » I’m the spiteful one? Did you read your post? I have an idea to sort out a service. Clerical civil service staff get pay rises every year like all the other staff. We have Tus nua a great success. Why not roll it out across the whole department?
Ajsoprano wrote: » It’s a discussion site. I’m finding nobody has an opinion. Anytime I try start a discussion srameen disrupts the thread then a few lads turn up telling me my discussion is stupid. Nobody ever says why. It’s a bizarre place. Facebook is meant to be for the people who don’t reason.
Izaiah Salmon Egg wrote: » OK, two things. Firstly, I never posted a single syllable in this thread and deliberately so, so quit your accusations. Secondly, just because you don't hear agreement with your whacky ideas doesn't mean it's not a discussion. This is After Hours. Try some of these notions in the Politics forum and see what the response and level of discussion is. Plenty of posters have an opinion on the matter and they all seem to be likeminded.
Ajsoprano wrote: » With all these jobbridge type schemes popping up it got me thinking. Are we slowly privatizing the dept of social welfare? How many people in this dept are employed? As much as an opposer I am to these schemes would it be kind of poetic if the staff that backed these schemes ended up on them. I think this dept being privatized would save the tax payer a fortune. Most of the jobs are simple form filling type jobs a bit of basic training could give yet the people have Union public sector jobs which pay well. A private company could come in and take staff off the social welfare give them basic training in form filling and get 10000 euro just for employing these people. So then you would have the person forced to work filling out the form with the person who wants to work. This newly out of work ex civil servant hold then have to wait 2 years (because of the 10000 grant requirements) to get their old job back but on minimum wage. Bizarre wouldn’t it be. Surely the water charge freeloaders with their iPhones would be out in the streets protesting this.
Ajsoprano wrote: » But it’s already happening. Jobbridge tuas nua skillsteam. It’s privatising looking for work. Will they stop at that or will the people on the front desk be privatized too. A minister for social protection could oversee a few interns to watch over the private companies.
Ajsoprano wrote: » I have an idea to sort out a service.
Ajsoprano wrote: » Clerical civil service staff get pay rises every year like all the other staff.
Ajsoprano wrote: » We have Tus nua a great success. Why not roll it out across the whole department?
end of the road wrote: » it's success is actually very debatible, so it wouldn't really be viable to roll it out further. all though it very well may be rolled out in the future regardless, but i'd hope not.
splinter65 wrote: » Staff in SW don’t fill forms, they process the information in the form the customer has completed. It’s a good bit more complicated then you seem to think. I can’t imagine the public service unions allowing any of your suggestions either.
Ajsoprano wrote: » You spend your time on the tuas nua forum saying how splendid it is. You give a lot of advice on the welfare thread. But you only agree to partial privatisation of the welfare system. The part that doesn’t apply to you?
splinter65 wrote: » Your not as much spiteful as completely wrong about how the DSP operates. Your quoting jobridge which no longer exists. Your under the impression that SW staff fill in forms. Which forms? You don’t seem to know that there are desk clerks, deciding officers , SW inspectors, CWOs, fraud investigators etc all doing entirely different jobs, with differing grades of responsibilty. I think you’ve had your feelings hurt or felt insulted or slighted or something by DSP and you’ve decided that someone needs to be taken down a peg or two or possibly be put back in their box?
Ajsoprano wrote: » Well when dealing with the dsp or seeing a thread about the new job bridges I was told the only argument is from people who don’t want to work. I thought maybe you are right and decided to think bigger. Instead of just privatising the part where the people who are out of work were dealt with let’s privatize the staff too. Suddenly there was all sorts of arguement against how important the social welfare department is and how important it was to have staff who cared for the unemployed. It’s making me think again maybe I was right in the first instance and my initial feelings could of been right. I just dont know what to think anymore.
splinter65 wrote: » I’m not surprised you don’t know what to think anymore. None of what you’ve written here makes any sense ? You seem to think that Jobseekers payments are the only ones processed by DSP. Who did you think processed Carers, Pensions, Widows, SWA, Families, Disabilities, redundancies, Free Travel etc?
Ajsoprano wrote: I’m sorry bud but I shall no longer be discussing things with you.
wexandproud wrote: » i would not be that frequent a poster on boards but i actively avoid posting these type of topics that in my opinion are just 'weird' . Also at the risk of being slated on here i would add the remarks about yourself are uncalled for . In you defence , although you and I had a slight '' run in '' on a thread a while back , i see you name popping up regularly and you strike me as a reasonably enough sort of a guy . cant see what others are complaining about
