IT article: "State spending has soared by 1/3rd since 2016 with little discernible benefit"

There's also been a proliferation of new State Bodies in recent years. That just looks like Government Departments outsourcing functions that they used to do, putting an extra layer of unaccountability between them and the public. Before the new State body was created who did the job and what are those Civil Servants doing now? Government Departments used to do things, now they oversee State Bodies that are supposed to be doing the things they used to do.
I think we need more Civil Servants and fewer Public Servants. Maybe that's what New Zealand is doing right. The further away from Government a State funded organisation is the worse it seems to function. The scandals in the housing Charites Industry are due to the fact that the Department of Housing and Social Protection are unable and unwilling to do their job and so outsource it to a sector that shouldn't exist. Approved Housing Bodies shouldn't exist either. This same phenomenon happens all over the State.
 
And what about all these quangos and bodies funded by the state, presumably these are not counted as state employees even though their wages are effectively paid by the state. I think we have 407,000 public servants which is substantial, I think it has grown from 320, 000 in 2017. However what is not included in these figures is all the people that work in all these "charities " quangos etc that are funded by the state. It would be interesting to get a figure on that. Maybe the government should task the esri with doing that study, oh well the esri is another one of those state funded bodies isn't it?
 
The issue you have there, is you want all these reports and studies, things recorded and checked and triple checked. It all takes lots of time and people.

Imagine like a pinball machine how many people and organizations a request like that would touch. Then try billing the time.

Whereas a private organization would say no not telling you. All those resources saved from not having to do it.
 
AlbacoreA said:
Whereas a private organization would say no not telling you. All those resources saved from not having to do it.
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The P&L bottom line forces them to be somewhat efficient.

The distinction isn't better State Bodies and private companies, it's between those organisations which spend their own money and those who spend other people's money.
 
joe sod said:
However what is not included in these figures is all the people that work in all these "charities " quangos etc that are funded by the state.
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I friend of mine works for a children's charity which was recently taken over by the HSE, as in it is now funded and run by the HSE. She said that their costs have increased massively and they have reduced the services they offer the kids with profound special needs. As they are HSE funded they are now on Public Sector type contracts with Public sector type T's & C's, hence the extra costs and reductions in services.
 
The one thing I would say for the AHB is they have a much higher compliance with paying rents for housing.

One issue I have is charities who get involved in service provision in their area. They have a mix of donations and government funding and it’s all smoke and mirrors.
 
I remember around the time of the establishment of the HSE, Mary Harney being asked what the function of 450 employed in the Department of Health were. The answer, IIRC, was 'deciding policy and direction'. I suspect there are more State employees involved in that noble (but extremely limited!) cause.
 
Everytime there's a new political strategy or a new scheme or initiative (often driven by public demand) it doesn't happen from thin air. As a result as these start and end there is constant churn of staff.

Its why when you try contact people across the public sector they've often moved and they never know who works where or in what. Thats before you get into staff who been sidelined or parked in pasture. Also why you find people in an area don't know it that well but people who don't work there but used to, know it really well.

Not entirely sure what role the unions play anymore. They seem to fading away in a lot of places. Usual stronghold areas.
 
Looking away from staff. Look at simple examples. Why do we still need a physical leap card for transport. Why so some services still require paper forms. Why do so many projects like the NCH miss 14 deadlines. Paper prescriptions.

Theres a systemic culture of a reluctant to embrace new technology. Trying to push change through is like carrying a piano up Everest. That has to be due a recruitment and management culture of not rewarding or promoting change or automation.

Look at the RTB it seems utterly confused about everything.
 
AlbacoreA said:
Look at the RTB it seems utterly confused about everything.
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This is intentional in my view. Make the "water as muddy as possible" and the issue is the landlords.

The Govt is trying to distance itself from hard decisions and uses others as their "scapegoats" be it housing, health etc.

All pensions within Civil and Public service (from middle management up) should be linked to performance up to and including elected officials. if you don't achieve agreed targets no pension is accrued for the period targets are not met.
 
Theres a systemic culture of a reluctant to embrace new technology.
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I would disagree with this assertation.
Far too many techies think the solution is more/newer/bigger/faster technologies.
Its not, sadly you are dealing with humans with all their problems.

The situation we find ourselves in is often many faceted and not simple.

Take the HSE as a prime example.
It is a multi legged stool with lots of direct and indirect political involvement.
This means that the latest "priority" is often politically driven, consequently all the work on the last "priority" becomes stuck in the ether with often no clear end game anymore.

Why do so many projects like the NCH miss 14 deadlines.
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Often its a mix of unrealistic expectation of what can be achieved combined with mission creep and the real need to have oversight.
 
BlackandBlue said:
Far too many techies think the solution is more/newer/bigger/faster technologies.
Its not, sadly you are dealing with humans with all their problems.
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Too often with public services I can't do something electronically. It's needs a paper form filled out, photocopies of more paper work. Then duplicated for everyone on the family. The paper work gets refused just before the deadline. The have no public office you can't go in person. You get through on a phone. Get the wrong information. Repeat the postal information. They lose it. You do it again. Then you finally get someone on the phone who fixes everything. Comes back with a typo. Go through the whole process again.

Takes lots of people lots of time.

Whereas some other service does it all online it's automatic. There are fewer typos because it's not people with manual processes. It's fast because it's not sitting in piles of paper to be processed.
 
I can remember trying to get a fax moved between two offices in Dublin to get someone on a waiting list. Took 3 months. Only moved because I insisted on coming in and hand delivering it.
 
Brendan Howlin is always entertaining even though he can be a bit left of centre for my taste. Like Joe Lycett, I am incredibly right wing. As a fiscal conservative, I have become successful through my own endeavours alone without the help of society or any wealth transfers. While I agree with Howlin's rambling screed thoughtful article, sadly he forgot to include any meaningful data.

We started in 2015 with €54 billion. Even if the only increase was inflation we would be at €68 billion now. This is a major error on the part of the government: they could have eradicated inflation which would have saved us so much money. Probably vetoed by an animal rights NGO.

Howlin implores:

I challenge anyone to explain how public services and infrastructure have improved in tandem with the rise in public spending.
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Even though we are all experts on everything these days, thanks to ChatGPT and self delusion, I am pretty ignorant about most things and only really know about healthcare.

The obvious thing that you never hear lefties say is that people just need to stop getting sick. Alas, the proles are not listening and healthcare spending in that period has doubled. It is now about €13 billion more than in 2016. With that extra cash, stolen from us hard-pressed 1%, they have increased healthcare staffing by 25%. Not just headcount but wholetime equivalents (WTE). The last thing we need is more nurses on the wards. Unions, etc.

They have increased consultant numbers by >150%, worse luck. After decades of wrangling, we have a public-only consultant contract which sadly has been a major success and is unfortunately rebalancing the 2-tier system. So my Vhi Plan Q will no longer give me a bump up.

Healthcare outcomes for patients have improved, e.g. deaths from heart attack and stroke in hospitals down by 20-40%. Waiting lists are steadily reducing every year and we are approaching Slaintecare (i.e. politically correct) targets in many areas. This is an outrageous attack on the livelihoods of funeral directors. Deaths from cancers reduced by 10-20%. And avoidable deaths for colorectal cancer in men alone down by 30%. This is the work of woke feminists and Big Pharma.

Almost 1,000 more acute hospital beds plus 25% increase in ICU capacity. Basically encouraging the working class to go for a lie down instead of toiling in the fields. 300,000+ children now have free GP care... but where are all these children appearing from? What was the point of free contraception?? Another scam.

Outside of health, further squandering of public money includes:
  • Free schoolbooks (now up to junior cert) - parents have far too much cash
  • 70% increase in Special Needs Assistants - truly the grim face of socialism
  • 4x more spending on childcare, fees capped, 2 years of free preschool - have we forgotten the blueprints of education and childcare handed down to us by Peig and Alice Taylor?
  • Huge leaps in connectivity, now in the top tier in Europe for internet access - dial up is more than enough to read skilfully crafted pieces in the IT or to post a rant on AAM
 
On school books. But it's a bit a scam they make minor changes to text books constantly forcing obsolescence. We'll be paying for that via tax. Will anyone tackle that utter waste? We now have a three year cycles meaning the books are bigger to carry more weight and small changes effect the equivalent of three books at a time rather than one. Move to ebooks you say. But they inexplicably cost the same as a paper book. Do you own the ebook to resell or do you rent it.
 
ep; streamline, standardise, then automate.
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Wrong order, this is part of the reason why the issues persists.

Correct order is standardize, streamline then automate if possible.

Biggest problem is bespoke systems.
Hideously expensive in the long run but loved by tech companies as they have you for ever with tech support and upgrades.
 
AlbacoreA said:
Do you own the ebook to resell or do you rent it.
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The ebook is "rented" for the duration of the cycle (3 Years for JC for example), so no savings there. Personally, I don't find ebook great for students as many get distracted by technology. In terms of books, when I was a child, there was a book scheme for all the secondary cycles, books were bough new or second hand at a price and sold at the end of the year with a reduction applied for the wear and tear. (that was more than 35 years ago). Nowadays, most books come with workbooks that are barely (if at all) used that make them in theory not reusable or are actually workbooks. I threw away my JC students books last week, some absolutely like new as the teachers provided their own material. I had kept my eldest ones just in case they were needed but these I knew would never be looked at again. The cost and the waste are unbelievable.
 
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Most of the ebooks require the purchase of the printed book. The printed book contains the code for the e-book. It's extremely wasteful. Have just disposed of a pile of JC books. Ironically, some of them have chapters on sustainability.
 
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