# Passport Delays



## Firefly (27 May 2010)

We still have a backlog well after the strikes/work-to-rule/whatever

The unions have banned overtime and are against the recruitment of 50 temporary workers. 

This is ridiculous. Why can't the workers, who were paid for doing nothing during the strike, now do work without payment? At least work overtime. But not allowing temporary staff to clear the backlog tells me the unions have no interest in improving PS efficiencies that they have spoken about. 

Roll up the sleeves and process the passports for God sake


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## Firefly (27 May 2010)

For fear I'll be asked for a link

[broken link removed]


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## Sunny (27 May 2010)

Is that article not from March? What's the situation now


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## Shawady (27 May 2010)

Sunny said:


> Is that article not from March? What's the situation now


 
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0527/pay.html


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## Deiseblue (27 May 2010)

It's now with the Labour Court.

Staff in the Passport Office have been told not to prioritise any passports but simply to deal with them on a first come first served basis.

The CPSU have said that due to the embargo on recruitment that they are shortstaffed as people who have left have not been replaced and they want the 50 additional posts to be permanent and not part time.

Here's wishing Kieran Mulvey luck !


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## Firefly (27 May 2010)

Deiseblue said:


> The CPSU have said that due to the embargo on recruitment that they are shortstaffed as people who have left have not been replaced and they want the 50 additional posts to be permanent and not part time.


 

Why should the union have any say in whether permanent or temporary staff are hired?


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## Sunny (27 May 2010)

Who the hell does the CPSU think they are? If the Government wants to give temporary employment to 50 people, why is a so called trade union blocking them? All most people can hope for at the moment is a temporary contract. It's all my employer and many other companies are doing. Better than having 50 people sitting on the dole for the next couple of months. 

My God, we have 13% unemployment and trade unions behave like this.


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## Purple (27 May 2010)

Firefly said:


> Why should the union have any say in whether permanent or temporary staff are hired?





Sunny said:


> My God, we have 13% unemployment and trade unions behave like this.



Doed anyone really expect better from them?


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## Firefly (27 May 2010)

Purple said:


> Doed anyone really expect better from them?


 
Not really, but after the "talks" the unions were all for PS reform and doing their bit etc...rubbish obviously. Wish the gov had the b*lls to outsource the whole backlog to someone else


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## Welfarite (27 May 2010)

Firefly said:


> Not really, but after the "talks" the unions were all for PS reform and doing their bit etc.


The CPSU rejected the Croke Park agreement and thus rejected ageeing to PS reform


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## Complainer (27 May 2010)

Firefly said:


> Why should the union have any say in whether permanent or temporary staff are hired?


Because it is their job to protect the terms and conditions of their members. The employer is failing to recruit the vacant posts for permanent staff, and seeking to hire temporary staff instead. Why should there be temporary staff for what will be permanent posts. Demand for passports isn't going to go away, so staff are needed. Why degrade the posts to temporary?

And anyone waiting for passports might want to ask the management team why they stopped the union procedure of prioritising passports for those travelling soon.


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## z104 (27 May 2010)

Why is this function not privatised? It's ridiculous having this done through the public service.


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## Complainer (27 May 2010)

Niallers said:


> Why is this function not privatised? It's ridiculous having this done through the public service.


Why would you want to add a profit margin on top of the existing cost? And that's without even thinking about the very obvious security issues involved.


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## orka (27 May 2010)

Complainer said:


> Because it is their job to protect the terms and conditions of their members. The employer is failing to recruit the vacant posts for permanent staff, and seeking to hire temporary staff instead. Why should there be temporary staff for what will be permanent posts. Demand for passports isn't going to go away, so staff are needed. Why degrade the posts to temporary?


My understanding is that there are always 50 temporary staff taken on to cope with seasonal demand.  The fact that there are permanent posts unfilled is a separate issue.  If there are normally, say, 200 permanent workers plus 50 seasonal and now there are only 180 permanent - yes, the unions may be unhappy that they are down 20 permanent posts, but why embargo the normal practice of employing 50 seasonal employees?  Blackmail?


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## BOXtheFOX (28 May 2010)

Or maybe just employ the temporary staff on a pro rata basis to the numbers of permanent staff. If the numbers of permanent staff have been reduced by 20% then reduce the number of temporary staff that they normally would recruit by 20%. At least get extra bums on seats to sort out the backlog.


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## Sunny (28 May 2010)

Complainer said:


> Why would you want to add a profit margin on top of the existing cost? And that's without even thinking about the very obvious security issues involved.


 
I would be willing to pay a profit margin if I was guaranteed a service and not have to put up with this rubbish. I am willing to bet that a private operater could do the job just as cheaply if not more. 

What obvious security issues?


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## MANTO (28 May 2010)

My OH's mother worked in the Passport Office every summer for god knows how many years and now they wont take her back on because of this rediculous carry on.


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## shanegl (28 May 2010)

Sunny said:


> I would be willing to pay a profit margin if I was guaranteed a service and not have to put up with this rubbish. I am willing to bet that a private operater could do the job just as cheaply if not more.


 
Well said


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## Firefly (28 May 2010)

Complainer said:


> (1) Because it is their job to protect the terms and conditions of their members.
> 
> (2) The employer is failing to recruit the vacant posts for permanent staff, and seeking to hire temporary staff instead. Why should there be temporary staff for what will be permanent posts. Demand for passports isn't going to go away, so staff are needed. Why degrade the posts to temporary?
> 
> (3) And anyone waiting for passports might want to ask the management team why they stopped the union procedure of prioritising passports for those travelling soon.


 
*(1) *Which terms and conditions of existing staff are being affected? 

*(2)* Surely the employer should decide on the make up of personell it requires...afterall they are paying the wages. Who says a post is being degraded? There's a backlog that was created by industrial action and the employer wants to hire temporary staff (at additional expense to the taxpayer) to clear this back log

*(3) *I though it wasthe union who are banning overtime and not allowing the gov to hire temp staff to clear this backlog.


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## DonKing (29 May 2010)

Complainer said:


> Why would you want to add a profit margin on top of the existing cost? And that's without even thinking about the very obvious security issues involved.



Lets get real here.

A private company would be able to deliver the passport service cheaper than the Public Service. They would pay their staff the going rate in the private sector for admin staff which would be considarably less than the overpaid public sector staff.  The private company would not have to contribute massively to a gold plated pension scheme for it's staff. Any well run private company will weed out wasters and ensure staff and the company structures are as effiecent as possible. We all know that the public sector has some great people but unfortuatley they are held back by too many wasters who couldn't be arsed to do more than the bare minimum to get them through the day.  

I cannot see any security issues which cannot be dealt with confidentiality agreements and security checks. Private sectors employees are citizens of the country as well and are no less "special" than public sector employees!


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## rockofages (29 May 2010)

Complainer said:


> Demand for passports isn't going to go away, so staff are needed. Why degrade the posts to temporary?


To provide extra manpower when it is needed. They are recruited every year, and on previous years when there have been permanent positions vacant in the PPO the unions did not block the temps. In addtion, how many people have left the PPO since the embargo began? Most people suspect it's being used as an excuse.



Complainer said:


> Why would you want to add a profit margin on top of the existing cost?


There is no profit margin in the NCTS. Like the PPO it is there to provide a service to the public.


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## z104 (31 May 2010)

Complainer said:


> Why would you want to add a profit margin on top of the existing cost? And that's without even thinking about the very obvious security issues involved.


 

The cost of the pysical passport should cost no more than a euro.It would even be cheaper if we went for a wallet sized passport. The rest is the admin involved in processing. I would argue that a private company could probably do it for half the cost.

Are you saying that people working in the private sector are less honest/more dishonest than the public sector.


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## micmclo (1 Jun 2010)

Passport Delay?

Application sent to Cork on May 18th.
Status as recieved on May 20th.
Printed May 21st
In my letterbox May 24th

It helps if your teammate in a work has a brother working in Cork PPO 
And if you had contacts don't tell me you wouldn't do the same to skip a queue


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## DonKing (1 Jun 2010)

micmclo said:


> Passport Delay?
> 
> Application sent to Cork on May 18th.
> Status as recieved on May 20th.
> ...



But I was lead to believe that the public sector workers were whiter than white and only they could be trusted to look after passport processing.


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## DublinTexas (1 Jun 2010)

As I said in other discussions about passports, let’s outsource this to a reliable provider like the German Bundesdruckerei for example. They have experience with other countries passports and provide reliable and fast service to a high standard.

So we open a couple of processing centres in which people show up to get their passport pictures/fingerprints done, show their valid documents and all is entered into a secure system, than the data is transmitted to the Bundesdruckerei and a couple of days later the passport is either in your mailbox or ready for collection. 

And if you are in a dead hurry you can even get a machine readable temporary passport the same day (not valid for US travel). 

Why do we need our own passport printing machines, if the machine we have are either broken (beyond repair), flooded or won’t be used to their ability because of some public sector strike.


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## orka (1 Jun 2010)

Yes, there's no reason why adult renewals in particular couldn't be outsourced.  All that needs to be checked are (a) if the details match the last passport, (b) if the photos match (and even that is already checked once by the garda/signatory on the back) and (c) if the signatures match.  The idea of a citizen's right to enter and leave the country being held to ransom for 5 weeks is just ridiculous.


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