I entirely agree. However, the substantial pay increases for public servants of the past number of years have been *explicitly* done in pursuit of paying the same money for the same work that the magical voodoo powers of The Market(tm) was telling us that work was worth. That free-market economics are a fairy-tale cannot be laid at the feet of the public service.

FF have spent the last decade telling us all about how much more they’ve spent i.e. a shocking amount and not quite so much on how much more service the public are actually getting for it i.e not nearly as much the increase in spending would lead a person to believe.

Yes, and where did most of it go? Harney’s frankenstein creation, the HSE. Where are the free market wunderkinds now, when the bill’s come due?

Proper public sector reform means make people accountable, creditable and responsible for the work they do. Accountable in that they have to answer to someone up along a chain until ultimately reaching someone who is hired and fire by the electorate i.e. a minister

Now, you and I are both old hands at the game that is politics (I grew up with it in FF, and I suspect you did too in FG), so let’s agree to set aside without further mention the charming notion that the electorate really elects ministers (or even TDs).

If you teach in a deprived school and you succeed in increasing the performance of your students you should be paid more and if you teach in Clongowes and none of your students gets into 3rd level you should be fired. Thing is in the Clongowes case you would be let go, the problem in the state sector is good or bad you’ll still collect your pay check.

I strongly suspect that the ‘Clongowes’ model isn’t quite so clear cut. (Perhaps some beneficiaries of an elitist Catholic private education would care to weigh in). It’s my observation that the difference between private and public sector occurs in the top managerial level – and not in their relative worth, but in their roles. Private sector is about efficiency (squeezing out the last cent) whereas public sector is – or should be – about effectiveness (delivering a srvice as fully as possible). These are two very different goals.

And this situation was not caused by the meltdown in the global financial system and it shouldn’t have needed that to happen for it to be addressed.

I disagree that this has nothing to do with the meltdown after a sustained boom. Given that:

(i) Increased economic activity in the private sector necessitates a much higher workload for state and semi-state bodies and

(ii) politicians naturally like to deliver both local pork (in the form of jobs and offices located in constituencies) and sweeteners for the electorate in terms of new services/agencies (it helps fill out the CV at election time).

- this is one very good reason why there’s currently so much bloat. Blaming it on public servants really isn’t fair. It’s the elite political class (most of whom are on wages and extras the envy of politicians the world over) who made the ultimate decisions here.

Its irrelevant what caused the current situation, fact is we cant afford the public service as it is. We have invested a lot of money in the civil service but there hasn’t been a corresponding improvement in service ,but they consistently award themselves pay increases.

I also agree with Conors point about investing in infrastructure, now is the time to invest these savings in education, roads etc. and not in someones salary. In times like these if you give someone extra money people will tend to save and not go on a spending spree. So it wont improve anything

Conor, EWI, Tomaltach, I presume you would substantially agree that increases in public spending should be aimed towards increasing the delivery of services and not towards paying individual more to do the same. FF have spent the last decade telling us all about how much more they’ve spent i.e. a shocking amount and not quite so much on how much more service the public are actually getting for it i.e not nearly as much the increase in spending would lead a person to believe.

Proper public sector reform means make people accountable, creditable and responsible for the work they do. Accountable in that they have to answer to someone up along a chain until ultimately reaching someone who is hired and fire by the electorate i.e. a minister, creditable in that promotions, salary increases, the exciting assignments to Borris are given to those who met their targets (which should be agreed with people outside their department) and responsible in that if you are crap at your job you get fired i.e the civil servants who advised Cullen of sign off on the e-voting contract while the Dail was still debating it and issues were still coming to light (this has nothing to do with the actual merits of e-voting but has to do with the idea of a minister being pressured by his own civil servants into signing a bad deal from a commercial viewpoint). Those individuals should not working at the taxpayers expense anymore. If you teach in a deprived school and you succeed in increasing the performance of your students you should be paid more and if you teach in Clongowes and none of your students gets into 3rd level you should be fired. Thing is in the Clongowes case you would be let go, the problem in the state sector is good or bad you’ll still collect your pay check.

And this situation was not caused by the meltdown in the global financial system and it shouldn’t have needed that to happen for it to be addressed. The reason it’s a topic now,is we can’t afford any longer to do nothing.

The faultlines in the Irish economy do not lie with the Irish civil service. The idea that a cull of civil servants is going to make the economy in any way better is fantasy. All it means is more people unemployed, and more pressure on public services.

The Irish government needs to tax Irish wealth (not just income), and borrow, beacuse that’s what you do in a recession. It needs to INCREASE public spending on infastructure projects, and INCREASE spending on public services (such as child-minding and education) – both of which Qualify as INVESTMENTS IN THE FUTURE. It needs to look towards lowering the costs of living, that’s where the focus should be, as that takes pressure off businesses via wages.

It needs to flush out the dead investments in the Irish economy, speed up the property correction (instead of propping it up), making mortgages not only affordable but realistic again.

The LAST thing you do is what Herbert Hoover did in the 1930s, for example,where you TAKE WORKING MONEY OUT OF CIRCULATION.

But, Fianna Fáil economic policy at the moment is not about getting the economy working again, per se, but about protecting those at the top.

According to Prof John Crown, we could have a genuinely public system for not much more than what is being paid now. However, that would mean scrapping co-location and the HSE.

So, for roughly the same amount of money now, we could have a genuinely working public health care system, which in itself would take significant pressure off each citizen’s living expenses.

None of this matters to Fianna Fáil, or indeed the Greens. Or, indeed, the wonderful geniuses in the Sunday Times. They’re all about self-interest at this moment, and amazingly, people are actually buying into it – that economic policies designed to protect the top 5% in this country are somehow the best policies to pursue at this moment in time.

I don’t know. Attacking public services during a recession is economic madness, and that’s an historical fact. And personal bitterness doesn’t change that historical fact.

The alternative, to tax wealth (not just income), and to flush dead investments in property into the real economy, is anathema to those with either, or both.

The other truism is that during the Celtic tiger two observations can be made – one is that the benefits flowed to Irish citizens in a chronically skewed manner, with the top 5 or 10 per cent of wealthy people making huge leaps in their wealth (5% own about 40% of wealth), but second is that the lawmakers created vast incentives, not to innovate, to do research, to promote indigenous industry, but instead to build houses! Even when it was clear that we were in a dangerous and unsustainable bubble, incentives were maintained and more air was blown into the bubble.

Having said all of that, we are now in a situation where the public finances are on a terrible and possibly catastrophic path. And I think it is valid to ask, can the public finances be rebalanced with tax raises alone or is there no option but to cut spending?

The tax part of the equation is clear enough – there was huge scope for innovative and progressive tax collection but the government focused mainly on regressive measures that affect more vulnerable people. And I hope that the gov continue to get huge flak for this and are forced to either re-write major chunks or to leave office. (What hope?)

But I am convinced that raising taxes alone will not be enough and that some cuts will be necessary. That does not mean I think our public sector was the ’cause’ of the crisis, nor that it is bloated (I think it is well understood now that our public sector as a % of GDP is small by OECD standards, even correction for the fact that we have nearly no defence spending). No it’s not bloated, it was not the cause. Yet after 10 years of poor government, with poor oversight of anything, it is hard to believe that there are not many agencies say, or parts thereof which are not carrying out activities that are socially or economically justified. And I think it is fair to say the HSE is in terrible shape. (Insiders have commented that it’s impossible to say what whole layers of managers are doing and who they report to). But it is easy to point the finger. Finding real pockets of inefficiency would take time and be far from trivial.

But I think another comment is fair. Given the increases through Benchmarking etc, and the broad acceptance that public servants are now pretty well paid, is it not fair to ask them if they are prepared to shoulder some part of the burden in getting the finances out of a state of possible collapse? Those in the private sector — who, like their public service counterparts, had no part in the cause of the downturn – are already paying the price. I am one of those whose pay was cut to zero – last month I was laid off. Tens of thousands more are in a similar position. Not to mention those who will end up getting pay freezes, pay cuts, or have to move to worse jobs. In this context, is it fair that the public sector should not have to share some of the pain? (as I mentioned – on tax, the rich should certainly be squeezed as far as possible but that doesn’t remove the necessity of this question)

If it is the case that the finances require significant cuts, then it seems to me that only small savings can be made unless the two big areas are affected: health and education. And in these areas salaries make up about 85% of the current spend. So either people are laid off (undesireable) or pay scales are temporarily frozen.

If there is a viable alternative that is fair, I want to hear it, and I’d likely support it. For I happen to believe in having a sound public service that is well funded and well managed.

I still have my job for now but my anual review is coming up and my expected increase is at least minus 5%. I hope all those public servents enjoy their 3.5%. It’s the last increase they’ll get for a ling time.

The Irish taxpayer is being used to bail out the private banks, bail out the private builders, bail out the private property developers, bail out the private insurance companies – in effect, underwrite a failed, bloated, inefficient, and corrupt, private sector, while at the same time the public sector is supposed to take lectures from the same private sector about the “ineffectiveness” of the Irish civil service! Per capita, one of the smallest public sectors in Europe!

I just want to point out that it’s the private sector that got us into this mess – a private sector that demanded, and got, deregulation in all the sectors that are at this moment imploding. Our problems are compounded not by the civil service, but by the fact that for the next two years the banks don’t have to change ANY of their failed practices, or sack ANY of their Steve Staunton-esque senior managers and CEOs, beacuse FF has passed legislation that guarantees to use all of our earnings, to save all of theirs.

and the Sunday Times article? Absolute bollicks. The pay scales are not different in the public sector, the bloody jobs are different. Simply a moronic analysis. Of course, the point is not to analyze, but to divert attention away from the litany of fuck-ups… private sector fuck-ups.

Braz, you could sack 30,000 civil servants tomorrow, as IBEC wants the government to do, and it wouldn’t make our economy any more boyant. The dead weight in the Irish economy, at this moment in time, is the dead capital sitting in the hundred of thousands of empty housing units across the island, and the billions of dead loans sitting in Irish banks. Until that issue is addressed, we’re going to continue to drown.