Public Service Allowance Scandal

As a civil servant in receipt of no allowances I am appalled at the pathetic attempt at "reform" of these allowances.

I would remind all those that their defending of the "frontline" workers (whilst demonising everyone else in the public and civil service) has now come back to bite them on the behind as things like "rental allowance" for Gardai are deemed to be untouchable even though Gardai do not have to provide any proof of actually renting a property to qualify for this allowance.

I do think Howlin has made an absolute mess of this and should look at his position, I say that as a (usually) Labour voter.
 
liaconn said:
Because we are fed up of responding to the continuous threads, the same old arguments, the myths, the exagerations and the downright lies and then seeing yet another thread starting up with the same old, same old. I too am a civil servant who doesn't get any allowances.
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Hi liaconn, no offence intented and I'm sure only a few receive the allowances listed above, but these seem crazy to me, perhaps the forklift allowance for forklift drivers is the most daft. These are only allowances we are talking about as well.

Given that we are borrowing to pay these allowances (as well as everything else) at some stage down the road the machine is going to grind to a halt.
 
Will Brendan Howling be fired for failing, by a very long way, to reach his €75m target?
 
liaconn said:
Because we are fed up of responding to the continuous threads, the same old arguments, the myths, the exagerations and the downright lies and then seeing yet another thread starting up with the same old, same old. I too am a civil servant who doesn't get any allowances. The only civil servants I do know who get allowances are those who are on call 24 hours a day ie Private secretaries to Ministers and Secretary Generals.
I am sure that there are some public servants who get unjustified allowances and I have no problem with that being reviewed and stopped. It's my tax as well as yours that pays these allowances. But it would be helpful, when posting, if people specified which areas of the Public Sector they are talking about. I can explain, justify or agree with complaints made about the civil service. But the Guards, Prison Officers etc etc are completely and totally different organisations which I support with my taxes but do not belong to. Even within the civil service, as Truthseeker has quite fairly clarified, you can't generalise. But no doubt someone is now rushing around saying all Civil Servants get free shoes.
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Well said Liaconn. People should specify exactly which areas of the Public Sector they are talking about. I work in the private sector and even I can realise that some of this thread is simply public sector bashing.
 
So anyone here really surprised at this result...it's Brendan Howlin after all, of the Labour party, the political wing of the Trade Unions.

The fact that numbers claiming the allowances and the costs involved can't be identified in a lot of the cases, just goes to show what an absolutely terrible job Senior Mgmt, especially in Finance, are doing. You would think out of just even plain curiosity they would have inhouse analysis of this. But no, they all switched their brains off a few years after joining the CS/PS and are on cruise control to Pensions time...so best not to rock the boat in the meantime, attract unwanted attention to 'our Dept.'

And FF across the floor castigating Howlin for not delivering and demanding he call in the Unions and get tough......it's all a joke
 
liaconn said:
Because we are fed up of responding to the continuous threads, the same old arguments, the myths, the exagerations and the downright lies and then seeing yet another thread starting up with the same old, same old. I too am a civil servant who doesn't get any allowances. The only civil servants I do know who get allowances are those who are on call 24 hours a day ie Private secretaries to Ministers and Secretary Generals.
I am sure that there are some public servants who get unjustified allowances and I have no problem with that being reviewed and stopped. It's my tax as well as yours that pays these allowances. But it would be helpful, when posting, if people specified which areas of the Public Sector they are talking about. I can explain, justify or agree with complaints made about the civil service. But the Guards, Prison Officers etc etc are completely and totally different organisations which I support with my taxes but do not belong to. Even within the civil service, as Truthseeker has quite fairly clarified, you can't generalise. But no doubt someone is now rushing around saying all Civil Servants get free shoes.
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Fair enough, point taken, but we are still talking €1.4 Billion in allowances which need to be justified. Nevertheless Howlin's first attempt at reforming them have been a complete disaster.
 
Are allowance payments part of the wage calculation for pensions in the public sector?
 
Purple said:
Are allowance payments part of the wage calculation for pensions in the public sector?
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Not as far as I am aware which is why they should have been hit very hard, if core Pay is off the table due to CPA, then this was only angle Govt had to address pay related costs and they bottled it.
 
dereko1969 said:
then this was only angle Govt had to address pay related costs and they bottled it.
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I agree. The only logic I can see for Brendan Howlin doing this is that the CPA is due to run out well before the next election. For political reasons it might suit the government to say that allowances/overtime/increments are protected under the CPA (which was brought in by FF) but any in new agreement these items are back on the table. Therefore the government might try to argue that a CPA mark 2 is 'tougher' on the public service.
 
DerKaiser said:
Howlin is the only one being bashed on this thread.
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+1

I don't blame anyone for taking an allowance that they are entitled to, just like I have no problem with anyone taking advantage of a tax scheme that's legal. The issue here is that these allowances are available at all.
 
I appreciate that many PS workers get no allowances but if you divide the €1.4bn across the 280,000 or so PS workers, that is around €5,000 per head. There must be scope somewhere for cuts?
Howlin must go if the Government has any integrity left.
 
Firefly said:
I wonder what the total cost of the excercise was? Probably not too much change from the €3.5 million in savings :rolleyes:



You should talk to your union :D


It seems that a lot of the great defenders of the public sector here on AAM seem to be conspicuously quiet of late...
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There really is no point in entering into a discussion though is there at this juncture.

The Croke Park Agreement states that core pay is protected , that includes increments , allowances etc . - sure there have been comments that such should not be the case but ultimately the Agreement freely entered into by employers & employees ( via their respective Unions ) states otherwise - the LRC I would warrant would agree with this reading of matters.

Sure CPA 2 , if the Unions can be persuaded to engage , will possibly be a different ball game.
 
What I find amazing is that an experienced minister has screwed up sp badly. Did he not do his homework before he said he was going to make these cuts?
It's not as if he needed to do any work, all it required was 3 minutes on the phone.
It would have gone something like this;

Ring-ring
Ring-ring
...

"Hello Brethren, this is Comrade Brendan."

"Yes Brendan, you may speak"

"Thank you. I'm looking to cut €75'000'000 in public sector allowances. It that OK?"

(peels of laughter)

"Good one comrade. Why did you really call?"

"I was serious; the Blue-shirts and the IMF want us to live within our means and you already told me I couldn't touch the wealthiest demographic in the country; retirees and you told me I couldn't touch core pay for existing staff. I've screwed new entrants about as much as I can but we're still way over budget. What can I do?"

"That's your problem Comrade but you know you can't touch the untouchables. James Connolly died so that middle-income earners could be protected. Tell that guy with the beard that's not one of the brethren he just has to take more from the sick and the disabled instead."

“Well I need to save something; I need €3’500’000.”

“Why’s that Comrade?”

“Well that’s what I need to spend on advisors and spin-doctors to sell this to the public”

“OK, you can have that.”

"Right you are, thanks for your time, sorry for bothering you."
 
Do FG not get that they will get destroyed in the next General Election if they let Labour boss them around for the whole term?
The only winners here are SF and to a lesser extent FF.
 
TarfHead said:
I was amused by RTE's description of the €3.5m being 'well short' of the €75m target. 70% would be well short. Less than 5% is failure.
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Absolutely. How can Howlin stand there and claim not to be a failure?

To go on borrowing for day to day expenses is the road to economic ruin. To stand before us and pretend we're all stupid, well, that should be the road to political ruin.
 
Purple said:
What I find amazing is that an experienced minister has screwed up sp badly. Did he not do his homework before he said he was going to make these cuts?
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Not the first Government minister to go shooting his mouth off before actually doing anything. I think these guys were in opposition for too long where it was easy to sprout populist rubbish every time a camera was pointed at you. A few of them are finding out the realities of being in power.

This Government are proving to be as spinless as everything that came before them. Why don't we just be done with it and allow the ICTU to run the Country.
 
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