But bloody hell, there comes a point when you have to ask what is going on in the seemingly parallel world of the Irish public service?
According to an Irish Times editorial "Grandstanding on Property Tax" (19th December), our public services (including pensions) cost €1.3 billion a month to run.
But even in times such as these, when our rotten little kip is being kept afloat by IMF and EU money (we cannot afford to borrow on the bond markets), there is still a residual attitude that public money - borrowed as it is at present - is a limitless resource.
Have a look at the following extract taken from, not the Mail, but the Irish Examiner of January 14th. And apologies to any productive hospital workers I might know!
Hospital worker gets €60k to retire despite spending 18 years on sick leave
Saturday, January 14, 2012
A HOSPITAL worker was given almost €60,000 to leave the HSE under last year’s "cost-saving" voluntary retirement and redundancy schemes — despite being on unpaid sick leave for 18 years.
Documents obtained by the Irish Examiner show the unnamed employee was one of 61 HSE South staff paid to leave despite not being on the state payroll. Twenty people had been off it for five years or more. The figures are detailed by an HSE internal audit examination of the exit schemes.
According to the 26-page document, 232 of the 2,003 people who initially took up the national programme to cut health service payroll costs were based in the HSE South. But 61 of those had not worked in the system "for an extensive period". They included a former worker who had been on unpaid sick leave since 1992, when his paid sick leave had expired.
The audit said despite concerns over this person’s eligibility under the scheme, it was decided that under the Redundancy Payments Act he was entitled to almost €60,000: two weeks’ pay per year for 1992 to 2010 (€33,354); an undisclosed bonus week payment; a €23,664 ex-gratia payment and €1,130 "in lieu of notice" to leave under the cost-saving measure.
A similar internal review of exit scheme take-ups in the HSE Mid-West found that one applicant was incorrectly given €10,000 in taxpayers’ money.
The raft of internal audits released under the Freedom of Information Act includes details of:
* How doctors at the Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar cost the taxpayer millions of euro by failing to fill out private inpatient paperwork, some from five years ago, and saw costs written off as "bad debt".
* Concerns over how "acting up" payments for staff to cover more senior posts are used for longer periods instead of finding full-time employees to fill the roles...
It really is hard to reconcile all this nonsense with the fact that, but for the bailouts, the country is bankrupt, and recent tax increases are unlikely to see any boost to the exchequer as people have been bled dry at this stage. 23% of nothing is much the same as 21% of nothing, after all.
No matter what Kenny says - and his record for false promises is second to none - another bailout looks likely, and that is bound to come with conditions... which is probably just as well.
'Tis a great little land.
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7 comments:
"It really is hard to reconcile all this nonsense with the fact that, but for the bailouts, the country is bankrupt, and recent tax increases are unlikely to see any boost to the exchequer, as people have been bled dry at this stage." EXACTLY.....The name of the game now is LUCRE, by any means possible. The Irish Government (which one, LOL?) won't do the honourable thing and chooses the path of least resistance. Surprised? Could they have played the "we are trying to save the Euro card?" NO GM, why do the most obvious when they are set on continuously trumping themselves with stupidity. It's Irish. Nice to gain succor by been seen doing the right thing by agencies (news agencies etc) - who don't give a toss one way or the other - who take a false schematic approach to the Irish position.....
The Government (?) continue TO CHOOSE, also, that tried and tested Irish way of collecting revenue, namely STEALTH. Surprised?
This type of revenue collection is thoroughly cowardly and without any positive imagination. It's IRISH. Surprised? When the only platform is the local parish pump this is what happens. It's just smash and grab and pick on those most vulnerable. Unfortunately the administrative systems in this nation are stuck in an Empirical mindset GM and see nothing wrong with their actions. That's worring......Equally frustrating is the reaction from the bovine Irish public. That's typical.
"Despite being on unpaid sick leave for 18 years." Maddness.......All fine and dandy paying the new property charge, tax, rates (and they will become as deeply unfair and skewed as rates were. Oh, and add into the mix, impending falling wage earnings, continuing decreasing house prices in real terms and you have a recipe for another disaster, again of Irish making) whatever you want to call it but Ireland is overburdened by STEALTH TAXES AS IT IS. The Irish have willingly accepted RATES back, well 35,000 odd of them. Turkeys and Christmas, again Irish at play......OH AND WHAT ABOUT INFLATED STAMP DUTY and VRT, all paid by poor fools?
There is no leadership now in this land, a very dangerous predicament. Is this now dictatorship by Stealth?
Hi GM - more public service employees getting tax payer's money -
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/axed-ministerial-drivers-allowed-to-retire-with-enhanced-pensions-2989317.html
and we are paying for it.
@ Dakota. "Equally frustrating is the reaction from the bovine Irish public. That's typical."
The Irish public will take all the "stealth" taxes their indigenious rulers will throw at them, and will only parrot away about the Brits and the supposed 800 years, by way of response. It's like Animal Farm. The Orwell version, I mean.
@ Ella. And don't they have their security and doorman side jobs to keep them going too?
Yep, public money sure that is what itis there for. Micheal Martin on 6 one the other night, when asked by Bryan Dobson if he would appologise to the Irish peole for the waste of 55 million on e voting machines(the chip powering them cost 2 dollors), said, and I quote;
"AH, Bryan that is very unfair, sure the oppositon wanted them as well"
No remore, No fault, No sorry. That sums up the shite we call politics in Ireland.
GM, I was just thinking that myself. This is the perfect Orwellian environment and Animal farm is the perfect allegory. With one or two exceptions GM, most notably Boxer admired here? No, in the land of ponzy? Apart from that GM, it is a lesson for all those interested in, how easily individuals cow down to norms. And wow is that the case here? I never thought that society would become so sureal. It has. Perfect example of rampant neoliberalist socialism in denial.
Democracy gone, GM? No, you can't lose what you never had. It's the illusion which is gone. For some that is, for others, even that was never part of their understanding. You know them GM, those who don't want to mention why their house is virtually worthless and would rather rant on about the premier league, while at the same time hating the Brits.
This small island is nothing more than a laboratory. They won't increase corporation tax GM. Obvious why. The sham in shamrock, eh?
John, could you make it up? There is no political structure in Ireland, there never was, since the foundation of the state. The country is just a collection of lazy, feckless, dosile, cute hoor lackeys, the majority of whom with one mit in the cookie jar while simultaneously scratching anothers back. The power of embarrassment and irrational guilt are the only glues holding culture together here. Dangerous and nasty times on the muckey island.
Dakota, you are correct in your analysis, we have this post colonial mentality, on the one hand we go on about how great our fight for "FREEDOM" was, and on the other we ape the institutions and ideas of our colonial past. Graft and corruption was seen as gettingone over on our political masters. Are we one degree up the political food chain than, say, Zimbabwe??
Hey GM, About hospitals unclaimed health insurance by doctors,I actually pleaded in writing to hospital manager for help with volume of that work AND DIDN'T GET ANY HELP but then Managers ignore little Clerical Officers! And Public Service/hse Clerical Officers get Mickey Mouse Pensions after working most of their life most workers I know wouldnt get 60,000 lump sum. From A Productive Hospital Worker
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