Civil Servant Covid Recognition

I think nurses, doctors, healthcare workers , certain members of revenue commissioners ( for keeping the country paid) deserve recognition for the extra work and stress they were under.

Next we'll have the Teachers Unions coming out out demanding recognition for teachers for their work during the pandemic- this I would have a big issue with.

That all civil servants go home at 4.30. Most I know where working all hours to keep things going.

You'd struggle to find anyone in the public sector more self entitled than nurses. They complain about Covid etc that all they get is being called heroes etc Yet many of them absolutely as it fills their already inflated egos.

As a si gle parent who had to go to work everyday, was not let wfh and saw my childcare costs go through the roof as I had to pay different people cash in hand to look after my child with ASD. I ended up having to leave my job.

Yes I would welcome a payment. I'm not the only person who was in this position.

Is there any evidence that Covid spreads through contact with food/packaging if staff practice good hygiene? Surely those practices existed long before Covid?

I think the frontline health service staff (nurses, doctors, porters, paramedics etc) who had to deal literally face to face with thousands of people infected with a deadly disease deserve recognition and bonus. If they want 10 days holidays I say give it to them.

The rest of us. Shop assistants, Guards, Teachers, Factory workers, office staff etc. Well we were all in it together and I say we can't keep rewarding ourselves. Maybe lets have an extra bank holiday where we ACTUALLY shut everything down so people can have it off (i.e. just because you are off doesn't entitle you to insist all the staff of shops, restaurants etc around you are working to entertain you).

I would be particularly careful of the parasitic admin staff in the health service. My sister in law works for the HSE in an office in Kilkenny. She has zero interaction with patients. She doesn't even handle paperwork that was anywhere near a hospital. She is purely a back office function that seems could be done by a computer in 30 minutes but used to take someone with a pen and paper a week in 1922 so her job still exists because it always exists. She was able to work from home through the whole pandemic and still refers to herself as a "frontline worker". She was vaccinated before most nurses and doctors. She gets 29 days holidays a year. She has been on 2 holidays around Ireland this year and is off to Spain with her boyfriend for 10 days in October to use up the holidays they carried over from last year. Now she is on about needing another 10 days for the stress and danger she endured during the pandemic and hopes it will be approved in the budget so they can go skiing for two weeks after Christmas. The fat bitch didn't set foot outside her door for 6 months and now thinks she has PTSD fighting to keep the rest of us safe. My wife did all the shopping for their parents so the sister didn't even keep them safe never mind the nation. These parasitic admin functions will demand parity with the actual frontline staff. We can't let them get away with it.

There's been two major financial hits in the past 15 years - the Celtic Tiger collapse and Covid. In both cases, many of us saw significant drops in income. Meanwhile public servants sailed merrily on in terms of employment and pay. I don't think bitterness comes into it but one might describe it as galling that many public servants are not happy enough to have kept their stable incomes but also want compensation for something or other that's not entirely clear.

Did PS’s need any of those payments?

I think you need to adjust your sarcasm antennae.

I would ask this of anyone in both private and the public sector, why were you working so many additional hours without discussing this with your employer, were you made do them?

Of course you deserve respect, you have to acknowledge that in terms of job security and pay, you were insulated during Covid in a way many private sector workers were not. That must count for something. Do private sector workers feel the same sense of entitlement to bonuses/time ?