# HSE: Voluntary Early Retirement Scheme and Voluntary Redundancy Scheme.



## belview

On the basis of the redundancy terms mentioned today these redundancies will  only have a payback  in the fifth year after the individual  vacates their job.

As I understand it the terms are as follows:
Individuals will recieve an immediate pension with no acuarial reduction.
Individuals must sign up to go by mid Novemeber 2010 and leave by the 31st December 2010.
Individuals availing of these terms must be 50 years or over by 31st December.
Lump sum to be based on 3 weeks pay per year of service and capped at 2 years salary.
Individuals will also receive statutory redundancy terms if eligible.

Take an example of an individual on 60 k a year who is 55 years of age and has service of 35 years. The costs and savings to the HSE ( the exchequer) of this type of individual availing of the terms would be as follows.

        Year                        Costs                                             Savings

1            lump Sum of -----------------------120k                     Salary 60k
             Statutory Redundancy payment-----  42k
             Pension -----------------------------30k

2           Pension -----------------------------30k                     Salary 60k


3           Pension-----------------------------30k                    Salary 60k


4          Pension ----------------------------30k                       Salary 60k

               TOTAL  AFTER 4 YEARS               252K          versus                   240K

N.B THESE FIGURES DO NOT INCLUDE THE MASSIVE COST OF BACK FUNDING THE PENSION COST OF PAYING OUT A PENSION TO SOMEONE 10 YEARS EARLIER THAN NORMAL.


So its only in the 5th year after the person leaves their job that any savings accrue to the State  and thats on the far from certain basis that there is a real job saving i.e not replaced by a contractor or consultant and that those staying on in the HSE  absorb any residual work.

Sound like to me that we are once again  spending money without getting any real gain


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## Towger

Nothing new here. I know an accountant who 'retired' from a well know guango in the 80s, during a previous government initiative to cut costs. He started to work for them as a consultant the following week.


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## FTB1975

Hi Belview,
Where did you hear you had to be over 50? Is there more detailed info available on what's on offer and the Ts&Cs....my sister (late 20's) is working in Admin in St. Vincents so is she even eligible?
Thanks,
FTB1975


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## dymo

Yes she is they are offering it to anyone with over 2 years service i think there is more on the HSE website


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## BazFitz

belview said:


> Year Costs Savings
> 
> 1 lump Sum of -----------------------120k Salary 60k
> Statutory Redundancy payment----- 42k
> Pension -----------------------------30k
> 
> 2 Pension -----------------------------30k Salary 60k
> 
> 
> 3 Pension-----------------------------30k Salary 60k
> 
> 
> 4 Pension ----------------------------30k Salary 60k
> 
> TOTAL AFTER 4 YEARS 252K versus 240K


 
Isn't the lump sum payment for a public servant 1.5 times their final salary (i.e. 90K in your example rather than 120K)?


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## becky

There are 2 separate schemes on offer.  Voluntary Early retirement for people 50 plus and a voluntary redundancy scheme for anyone with 2 years service.

[broken link removed]


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## belview

Expect the tax free rules applying to redundancy lump sums to change in the December budget.

Hence the sign up deadline of 19th November should see a stampede of  punters getting in before the changes take effect for the new tax year starting on 1st January.


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## Tentman

Belview, I think your figures are wrong. 120k is the max your sample can get as a lump sum. You should also factor in what tax & levies will be paid by the pensioner.Full details here [broken link removed]


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## markowitzman

spot on Belview.....a lightly veiled wink to the management of HSE..
Brilliant!


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## mrsk

Belview your figures are wrong. Please stick to facts. There are two options.
 1. Early Retirement
 2. Voluntary Redunancy. 

Under early retirement the maximum lump sum one can get is 1.5 times their salary. To get this you must have worked and contributed to pension for 40 years. If you have less then 40 years service your lump sum is calculated pro-rata. A person on a salary of €60k with 40 years pension contributions would get a Lump sum of €90k. A person on 60k with 35 years service would get approx 78.75k.  A person with 20 years service would get a lump sum of €45k
If a person avails of this early retirement they would not get redundancy payment.

The voluntary redundancy scheme maximum redundancy payout is 2 times salary. The deal of 3 weeks pay & 2 weeks statutory is very low! It is way below a lot of recent redundancy awarded. Aer Lingus staff got 6 weeks pay, National Irish Bank Staff got 7.25 weeks pay for every year of service! An Post employees offered 9 weeks pay per yearof service. Intel workers offered 6 weeks pay & 2 week statutory!  Also there is a clause that prevents staff taking up employment for 7 years


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## belview

The essential point here is that people with little or no work are being paid large sums of money to get out of the way.
This is money that the country cant afford. 
The point about other organisations paying out better redundancy payments does not apply anymore. That was in the Bertie era of monty python economics.
And most importantly of all it is far from certain given the trade union attitudes that the " stayers" in the HSE will absorb  even the small volume of residual work left after the " goers" depart


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## ps1102

*Implications for Social Welfare ?*

Does anyone know what the social welfare implications are for someone who takes up the HSE voluntary redundancy scheme ? The trade union lady on morning ireland this morning said that people employed by the HSE prior to 1995 will never be entitled to social welfare again.......??


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## chrisboy

*The essential point here is that people with little or no work are being paid large sums of money to get out of the way.*

Hopefully this is correct, but isnt getting rid of these people what the croke park agreement is all about? Getting rid of these waster?



*The point about other organisations paying out better redundancy payments does not apply anymore. *

Its voluntary redundancy, they're not being sacked so they have to be offered an amount that will make them go. The fact that its a lot less than previously offered shows at least some attempt by the govt. to not overspend..

*And most importantly of all it is far from certain given the trade union attitudes that the " stayers" in the HSE will absorb even the small volume of residual work left after the " goers" depart*

Again, your view on the CPA is quite clear, but i've a little bit of faith in it, so i think the work will be absorbed by the "stayers".


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## Slim

*Hse vsr & ver*

Does anyone know how a redundancy payment would be taxed for a public servant? The Revenue website is very difficult to understand. Slim


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## suemoo1

belview said:


> The essential point here is that people with little or no work are being paid large sums of money to get out of the way.
> This is money that the country cant afford.
> The point about other organisations paying out better redundancy payments does not apply anymore. That was in the Bertie era of monty python economics.
> And most importantly of all it is far from certain given the trade union attitudes that the " stayers" in the HSE will absorb even the small volume of residual work left after the " goers" depart


 

Why are they being offered 2 weeks statutory on top of the 3 weeks?
thanks


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## Slim

suemoo1 said:


> Why are they being offered 2 weeks statutory on top of the 3 weeks?
> thanks


 They're not. It's max of 3 weeks per year, subject to max weekly pay €600 for the purpose of the calculation. Slim


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## suemoo1

great thanks, i was mis-reading it.


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## NovaFlare77

Slim said:


> They're not. It's max of 3 weeks per year, subject to max weekly pay €600 for the purpose of the calculation. Slim


 
Are you sure? According to the Irish Times "staff taking the voluntary redundancy scheme will receive three weeks salary for each year of service in addition to their statutory entitlement, up to a limit of two years pay."

In reply to suemoo1's question, I presume the three additional weeks are being offered to entice a large take up. Under the Croke Park agreement, compulsory redundancies are a no-go at the moment, and offering just statutory redundancy payments wouldn't generate the same level of interest.


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## Shawady

I thought it was 3 weeks *plus* statutory leave. Thats what was mentioned on the news last night.


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## PaddyW

That's what I heard also


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## NovaFlare77

From the HSE's website page on the redundancy programme:



> These employees will receive a Voluntary Redundancy Package which consists of 2 separate parts
> 
> *Part 1 - Statutory Redundancy*
> Two weeks pay for every year of service plus one week
> Weekly pay is capped at €600 per week. This means that if you earn in excess of this amount you will not receive more than €1,200 for each year of service. Allowances which form part of your salary will be included up to the capped amount. There is a very good calculator available for statutory redundancy on www.entemp.ie
> Statutory Redundancy is not taxed.
> 
> *Part 2 HSE Voluntary Redundancy Package*
> Three weeks salary for every year of service
> This is your *actual salary and includes allowances, capping does not apply.
> 
> Actual salary equates to your normal weekly pay based on your contracted work commitment e.g. wholetime, job-share (50% basis), part-time (less than full wholetime hours).
> 
> This redundancy package has certain tax exemptions.


 
[broken link removed]


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## becky

Yes it's 3 years plus 2  up to a max of 2 years salary see circ here

[broken link removed]


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## Slim

Sincere apologies, I missed that. Do people who get statutory redundancy get the dole then? Will class D PRSI payers get the dole? Slim


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## becky

Slim said:


> Will class D PRSI payers get the dole? Slim


 
No SW for class D.


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## jboc

Can anyone clarify how they can implement the rule about not taking up work in a Publicly funded organisation for 7 years.  I am currently on Career break and looking for temp work in schools.  If I applied for the redundancy scheme, it appears this wouldn't be an option.  Any comments would be appreciated.


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## FioBi

becky said:


> No SW for class D.


 
As employees on Class D have only paid very small amounts of PRSI unlike everyone else this leaves them not entitled to SW. 

This is the same situation as self employed people find themselves in and I agree it is unfair if you are not allowed to pay a higher amount of PRSI you should not be disqualified from social welfare.

If the government changes the situation for Class D Public Sector then they also need to do the same for self employed people

Of course everyone is entltled to means assessed social welfare


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## FioBi

I think people in the Public Service should seriously consider this a good deal as we may not be able to borrow money next year to run the country and the EU/IMF will have to bail us out.  I am not trying to scare anyone but the borrowing costs keep going up and this is an indication that no one will lend us money as they perceive it to be too risky.

The first thing they always do is severly cut public sector wages and there will be no hope of generous packages. I agree this is not as good a package as other private companies have offered but I dont think many of them have offered such good early retirement packages.


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## belview

Not trying to scare anyone considering opting for voluntary redundancy or early retirement but Bloomberg TV are reporting this afternoon that Ireland has 1 month to stave off a bailout.

I can hear the sound of the stampede from miles away and the queue outside the H.R. managers door is getting longer.


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## Marietta

belview said:


> Not trying to scare anyone considering opting for voluntary redundancy or early retirement but Bloomberg TV are reporting this afternoon that Ireland has 1 month to stave off a bailout.
> 
> I can hear the sound of the stampede from miles away and the queue outside the H.R. managers door is getting longer.


 

Things are getting worse by the hour


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## DerKaiser

jboc said:


> Can anyone clarify how they can implement the rule about not taking up work in a Publicly funded organisation for 7 years. I am currently on Career break and looking for temp work in schools. If I applied for the redundancy scheme, it appears this wouldn't be an option. Any comments would be appreciated.


 
I think you've raised an interesting point.  There's a baby boom going on out there that will surely lead to an increased requirement for teachers, etc in the coming years.  Should we be looking at a future need for redeployment across the public service before giving people big payoffs to leave and not come back?

Looking at things in the medium to long term I think it's madness not to cut individual wages by 5 to 10% rather than laying off 5 to 10% of the workforce.  My reasons are:

1) It would be a fluke if the planned cull removed the most useless public sector staff
2) The cull will increase social welfare
3) There are massive redundancy costs and the upheavel of restructuring will be costly 
4) It's true that we could get by on fewer numbers in the public service right now, but demands for health care are increasing with an increasing number of elderly, demands for social services are increasing with more unemployed, demand for teachers will rise with the baby boom and demand for gardai will increase as crime escalates with increasing poverty.

So my point is that whilst there may be spare capacity in the short term, there will be an increased workload for the public service.

I genuinely find it crazy to cut the wage bill with redundancies rather than pay cuts.


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## mary.t

Hi does anyone know if social care workers are eligible for this? I rang the help line today and they gave me an email address for my query, the reply was that they would be in touch shortly as of yet i've heard nothing, any info would be appreciated.


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## chrisboy

belview said:


> Not trying to scare anyone considering opting for voluntary redundancy or early retirement but Bloomberg TV are reporting this afternoon that Ireland has 1 month to stave off a bailout.
> 
> I can hear the sound of the stampede from miles away and the queue outside the H.R. managers door is getting longer.




Or else will Angela keep running the country and the ecb  keep buying the bonds?


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## belview

Apparently  approx 1,000 individuals have  expressed a firm interest in availing of the terms and that after day1.


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## becky

FioBi said:


> As employees on Class D have only paid very small amounts of PRSI unlike everyone else this leaves them not entitled to SW.
> 
> This is the same situation as self employed people find themselves in and I agree it is unfair if you are not allowed to pay a higher amount of PRSI you should not be disqualified from social welfare.
> 
> If the government changes the situation for Class D Public Sector then they also need to do the same for self employed people
> 
> Of course everyone is entltled to means assessed social welfare




I pay €44 q week while my PRSI A colleague pays €69 so it's not a very small amount imo.  The percentage I pay is lower is lower but I pay it on more of my income.

It's a major consideration for someone hired before 1995.  

I agree with the rest of your post.

Based on talking to colleagues today, there is not going to be a big take up of these schemes.


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## gipimann

jboc said:


> Can anyone clarify how they can implement the rule about not taking up work in a Publicly funded organisation for 7 years. I am currently on Career break and looking for temp work in schools. If I applied for the redundancy scheme, it appears this wouldn't be an option. Any comments would be appreciated.


 
One of the conditions of the scheme is that everyone who goes on redundancy or early retirement is added to a database. Before a public sector organisation can recruit someone, they must check that the person isn't on that database - if they are, then they can't be recruited (for redundancy it's 7 years, for early retirement it's a permanent ban).

There was a similar condition (and database) for those who took the Incentivised scheme (ISER) earlier this year.

PS - Have you checked that you are not breaking the terms of your career break by taking up employment?


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## BazFitz

The statutory redundancy (i.e. 2 weeks pay per year of service plus a bonus week) should be based on a maximum weekly salary of €600.

However, the 3 weeks pay per year of service should be based on the individual's actual weekly wage.

This could mean large payouts for people with many years of service (which is probably likely given the profile of the target group).

How much of the ex gratia element of the redundancy that'll be taxable will depend on what's the higher of €10,160 + €765 for each complete year of service, that calculation plus €10,000 or the SCSB.

It could be a great deal for certain people.


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## belview

There is a further calculation which the revenue allow to determine the tax free element of a  redundancy lump sum,

It will be applied if it is more favorable to the individual.

The calculation is as follows:

The average annual pay based on your last 36 months of work  - Multiplied by the number of actual years service in the employment you are being made redundant from and Divide the answer by  15.


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## BazFitz

And subtract any amount receivable as a tax free lump sum from an occupational pension scheme...this "further calculation" is called the SCSB (and I referred to it in my post).


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## belview

Heard on the grapevine this morning that a significant number of HSE staff are booking in their  remaining annual leave entitlement before the end of the year to make sure that they do leave any unused leave before they depart on 30th Dec.


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## Papercut

belview said:


> Heard on the grapevine this morning that a significant number of HSE staff are booking in their  remaining annual leave entitlement before the end of the year to make sure that they do leave any unused leave before they depart 01 30th Dec.


Surely they would be better off not taking it & getting paid for it instead?

After all, they will have plenty of time off from January 2011 on.


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## PaddyBloggit

belview said:


> Heard on the grapevine this morning that a significant number of HSE staff are booking in their  remaining annual leave entitlement before the end of the year to make sure that they do leave any unused leave before they depart 01 30th Dec.



if they are entitled to it .... let 'em book away!


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## Tentman

In any case they are only entitled to take a max of 75% of their entitlement before 31st Dec. The Leave Year runs from 1st April to 31st March.


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## Firefly

belview said:


> Heard on the grapevine this morning that a significant number of HSE staff are booking in their  remaining annual leave entitlement before the end of the year to make sure that they do leave any unused leave before they depart on 30th Dec.



The road to Newry will be jammed again so


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## Purple

Firefly said:


> The road to Newry will be jammed again so



Lol


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## belview

After reading Morgan Kelly's article in todays Irish Times anyone still undecided about getting out of the HSE cant say they were not warned.


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## venice

> Not trying to scare anyone considering opting for voluntary redundancy or early retirement but Bloomberg TV are reporting this afternoon that Ireland has 1 month to stave off a bailout.
> 
> I can hear the sound of the stampede from miles away and the queue outside the H.R. managers door is getting longer.


 


> After reading Morgan Kelly's article in todays Irish Times anyone still undecided about getting out of the HSE cant say they were not warned.


 

belview, are the Government paying you to campaign to scare people out of there jobs or something. 

Poeple have careers that they are not going to run from on the off chance that there wont be enought money to pay them. It does not work that way for most people..


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## belview

Venice

I can assure you  that I am certainly not being paid by the Government , indeed I can go further and say that I have never  ever even voted for them.

Any  opinions or advice I am offering is based on over 30 years working as an executive in the private sector which includes a large amount of  industrial relations management experience.

If you believe that there is only an "off chance" of there being not enough money to pay public sector wages  then you are not reading the obvious signs out there or else you are listening too much to sunny Jim  aka Brian Lenehan. His father was not known as " no problem" for nothing.


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## venice

OK, so you are advising people in the public service should all rush to the HR office and apply to up and leave there job...and then what should they so. Please explain what they should do then.


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## belview

venice said:


> OK, so you are advising people in the public service should all rush to the HR office and apply to up and leave there job...and then what should they so. Please explain what they should do then.



Its up to each individual to evaluate the offer , the economic climate the offer is   is made in , and their own financial circumstances.

My experience  from private industry is that severance packages and redundancy terms have gradually reduced over the last decade. Equally pension terms  and entitlements have also worsened. These changes took place not due to the Celtic Tiger crash but because of the unsustainable cost of funding for employers Ask anyone in the private sector and they will confirm this.

The Irish Public service is only starting out on its process of cost cutting and rationalisation. I can say with confidence that the packages on the table today will not be available again.


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## venice

> Its up to each individual to evaluate the offer


 
Thats my point exactly.

As for comparing private and public sectors... well there is enough treads on that already and they all just turn into one big rant unfortunately.


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## thedaras

Looks like contrary to what we are being led to believe that there may be a huge take up of the offer ;
7000 have expressed and interest..7000!!


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## venice

Yeah, they will have no problem getting the numbers..


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## Tentman

thedaras said:


> Looks like contrary to what we are being led to believe that there may be a huge take up of the offer ;
> 7000 have expressed and interest..7000!!


And if anything like 7000 out of a total of 17000 admin staff do leave, then I for one cannot see anything other than a complete collapse of the HSE .


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## BazFitz

Tentman said:


> And if anything like 7000 out of a total of 17000 admin staff do leave, then I for one cannot see anything other than a complete collapse of the HSE .


 
That might be the case if those 7,000 people actually did anything.

The culture of laziness, inertia, ineptitude and resistance to change within the public service (excluding frontline staff) is disgusting.

The departure of 5,000 or 7,000 people from the HSE's administrative side won't make any difference to the service delivered to the public. That says it all. Excluding the hospitals own HR departments, there are *2,000 *people working in HR within the HSE. That is an incredible statistic.


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## belview

How many work in the HSE now --- about half of them.


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## Deiseblue

belview said:


> How many work in the HSE now --- about half of them.



30 years experience in the Private Sector with experience in industrial relations management eh ?

You certainly hide it well .

Still they are are only Public Sector workers and are there to be laughed at right ?

Still the originality of the joke is stunning.


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## becky

BazFitz said:


> Excluding the hospitals own HR departments, there are *2,000 *people working in HR within the HSE. That is an incredible statistic.



Are you sure the HR departments within hospitals are not included?  I understood he counted everyone within HR ie: HSE and all the voluntary sectors.


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## BazFitz

becky said:


> Are you sure the HR departments within hospitals are not included? I understood he counted everyone within HR ie: HSE and all the voluntary sectors.


 
Positive.

I listened to a senior HSE representative on Newstalk last week.

There are 2,000 people working centrally in HR within the HSE and that excludes the numbers employed in each hospital's HR department.

The representative also confirmed that the removal of 5,000 "admin" employees from the HSE would have NO EFFECT on services.  So what exactly do those people do?

Anyone who denies that the non-frontline public servants in this country do sweet FA is burying their head in the sand.  I deal with them on a daily basis and the majority are lazy, incompetent, institutionalised and grossly underworked.


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## Deiseblue

BazFitz said:


> Positive.
> 
> I listened to a senior HSE representative on Newstalk last week.
> 
> There are 2,000 people working centrally in HR within the HSE and that excludes the numbers employed in each hospital's HR department.
> 
> The representative also confirmed that the removal of 5,000 "admin" employees from the HSE would have NO EFFECT on services.  So what exactly do those people do?
> 
> Anyone who denies that the non-frontline public servants in this country do sweet FA is burying their head in the sand.  I deal with them on a daily basis and the majority are lazy, incompetent, institutionalised and grossly underworked.



You deal with all the PS non frontline staff on a daily basis !

Wow , that's some job - you must be really streched.


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## BazFitz

Deiseblue said:


> You deal with all the PS non frontline staff on a daily basis !
> 
> Wow , that's some job - you must be really streched.


 
Not sure where I claimed that I "deal with all the PS non frontline staff on a daily basis".

With attention to detail, grammar, spelling and wit like that, you should be a Principal Officer.

It's time that the jokers in the public service were purged.


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## Deiseblue

BazFitz said:


> Not sure where I claimed that I "deal with all the PS non frontline staff on a daily basis".
> 
> With attention to detail, grammar, spelling and wit like that, you should be a Principal Officer.
> 
> It's time that the jokers in the public service were purged.



Well if you don't deal with the totality of the non frontline PS sector then what you are indulging in is massive generalisation.

Thanks for clearing that up for me .

Thanks for the kind comments about my suitability for a job as a Principal Officer but I 'm quite happy with my private sector status.


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## BazFitz

Deiseblue said:


> Well if you don't deal with the totality of the non frontline PS sector then what you are indulging in is massive generalisation.


 
No it isn't.

It's perfectly reasonable to observe an appropriate sample of a larger population and to then draw conclusions in relation to the larger population.

Per the HSE, we know that 5,000 people can wander off into the sunset without any detrimental effect on services.  Per the HSE, we know that there are 2,000 HR personnel employed centrally within the HSE.  These are truly shocking figures.

When the health boards merged, the plan was to achieve synergy and to streamline.  Where each health board had (say) a head of HR or a financial controller, most of these (or even all but one) of these should have been made redundant.  Then Bertie Ahern rode in like some kind of retarded knight in shining armour and unilaterally promised that nobody would be made redundant.  That's why we know have multiple people in the HSE doing jobs that one person would do in a private sector entity.

Fianna Fail (and Bertie Ahern specifically) bought industrial peace during the boom with idiotic partnership agreements and crazy concessions like the one above and this is what's wrecked the country.  And it was all done with unsustainable income.  The problem in this country is primarily on the expenditure side and the most effective way to tackle the problem is to attack public sector pay (both pay rates and employee numbers).


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## Deiseblue

The HSE is such a huge organisation with a wide breadth of services that you cannot draw any worthwhile conclusions from a small demographic such as you deal with , you undoubtedly are indulging in massive generalisations.

The view that the administration will be unaffected by 5,000 redundancies is quite frankly ludicrous never mind what some guy who is charged with selling the deal to the public says.

Indeed the HSE said today that the mental health service is at risk due to the imminent retirement of 1000 mental health nurses and a further derogation of the recruitment moratorium will have to be granted.

As to the current deal presumably you don't have a problem with the 5000 employees receiving decent terms from their employer paricularly as large savings will be made by the employer ?- seems fair to me


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## BazFitz

Deiseblue said:


> The view that the administration will be unaffected by 5,000 redundancies is quite frankly ludicrous never mind what some guy who is charged with selling the deal to the public says.
> 
> Indeed the HSE said today that the mental health service is at risk due to the imminent retirement of 1000 mental health nurses and a further derogation of the recruitment moratorium will have to be granted.


 
It is ludicrous and it illustrates the amount of fat within the organisation.  This fat is the result of Bertie's capitulation.

Frontline services are a different story.  There shouldn't be a recruitment ban in relation to (say) nurses, doctors, firemen, Gardai etc because that ban really is affecting services and putting lives in jeopardy.

But the wasters who work in 'admin'?  Cull them immediately and make those left behind actually work for a living.


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## Complainer

BazFitz said:


> It is ludicrous and it illustrates the amount of fat within the organisation.  This fat is the result of Bertie's capitulation.
> 
> Frontline services are a different story.  There shouldn't be a recruitment ban in relation to (say) nurses, doctors, firemen, Gardai etc because that ban really is affecting services and putting lives in jeopardy.
> 
> But the wasters who work in 'admin'?  Cull them immediately and make those left behind actually work for a living.



This is nonsense. There has been no analysis that shows that the organisation is 'fat'. They're just cutting because they can, not because they know where the excess staff are.

This demonisation of 'admin' staff is foolish and narrow-minded. The staff who pull the charts and have them ready for the docs are essential to the smooth running of clinics. The staff who maintain the xray machines and the MRI machines are essential. The staff who build and maintain the system that delivers electronic xrays to the relevant docs are essential.


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## DonDub

Over very many years there have been very many TV reports and newspaper articles that have highlighted inefficiencies and wastage in the PS. It is possible that these are evidence of an unfair, coordinated and sustained anti-PS campaign.
Alternatively, they may reflect the reality of the PS i.e. over-manned, poorly managed and over-paid. As most PS employees are drawn from the same genetic pool as private sector employees, it would seem reasonable to argue that they are generally as clever/stupid as this group. What separates these groups are the realities they face i.e. in the private sector, if the business you work in produces goods/services that are poor quality and/or too expensive - it will not be a business for too much  longer. These  clever/stupid private sector workers generally respond to crisis quickly e.g new ways of working, pay cuts/freezes etc. Sometimes this is sufficient to sustain the business and their jobs, at other times compulsory redundancies are required - hence the 430,000 jobless.

For the clever/stupid PS employees (including front line staff), there are no real negative consequences  for poor quality/service. Where individuals are challenged for below-par performance, they can rely on the union cavalry to ride over the hill to the rescue. As for compulsory redundancy -  Ian Paisley's
..Never! Never! Never! comes to mind.

So, given the ubiquity of clever/stupid people across both the PS and private sector, I can only draw the following conclusions:

- That clever/stupid people will tend towards the soft option, if allowed to
- That clever/stupid people will take unpalatable decisions when the consequence of not doing so is even more unpalatable
-  That clever/stupid politicians will pander to clever/stupid public servants (e.g. benchmarking) to buy votes
- That the clever/stupid private sector employees (and those on the dole) will no longer take the pain to sustain their PS counterparts in their unsustainable jobs, with their unsustainable pay and conditions..........


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## RonanC

BazFitz said:


> What about the Revenue staff who are attacked for changing the clocks in  their office to reflect the hour going back "because it's robbing an  OPW guy of his job"?



Where is the proof that this is happening in any Revenue office in Ireland?

Also, if you take a chainsaw to the 'admin' in our 'joke' of a public service, who is going to suply these services? 

Also, where is it mentioned anywhere that there is 2000 staff in HR in the HSE? You keep mentioning it but you have yet to supply any hard facts on these figures. Have you a chip on your shoulder in relation to the HSE or just in relation to the Public Sector in general?


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## DonDub

From the Horses Mouth;See also: THE POST.IE


> 6,000 HSE staff express interest in redundancy
> 07 November 2010 By Susan Mitchell
> 
> Sean McGrath, national director of human resources with the HSE, said it showed there was considerable interest in the scheme from management, administration and general support staff.
> McGrath said it was widely accepted that too many staff were employed in certain areas within the HSE.
> 
> ‘‘There are about 2,000 people working in the HR function. I could probably get away with having 700 or 800 in that department," he said.
> 
> McGrath refused to say whether the departure of as many as 5,000 of the HSE’s 29,026 staff in the categories targeted for redundancy went far enough.


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## RonanC

2000 staff in a HR department is massive no matter what way you look at it. When you compare the figure to the [broken link removed] in total that work for the HSE, it equates to 2% of the workforce in such a diverse organisation.


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## becky

RonanC said:


> 2000 staff in a HR department is massive no matter what way you look at it. When you compare the figure to the [broken link removed] in total that work for the HSE, it equates to 2% of the workforce in such a diverse organisation.



I remain unconvinced that all these HR staff are solely corporate HR.  I'm HR, not corporate but am pretty sure I'm included in this number.

Sean McGrath in another interview stated that admin levels are on very much on a par to international rates, including NHS. 
[broken link removed] 

I like him, appreciate we have too many and I have a list of 5 people who could leave HR without anyone even noticing.  He was shooting from the hip that day trying to deliver a message on behalf of the government.


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## becky

BazFitz said:


> But the wasters who work in 'admin'?  Cull them immediately and make those left behind actually work for a living.



Why are all the wasters in admin do you think? Or do you know?

I don't normally bother with the public service bashing debates but do find it tiresome that it's always admin who are the 'wasters'.


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## Deiseblue

DonDub said:


> From the Horses Mouth;See also: THE POST.IE


 
Hardly from the horse's mouth .

More from the mouth of the guy charged with selling the deal to staff and the media.

The comment that he could "probably get by " with 700/800 HR staff sounds to me that little or no background research has been done prior to unveiling the deal.

It will be a cold day in hell before I take comments from the upper echelons of HR in any large company as being absolute fact when it comes to explaining the rationale for large scale voluntary redundancies/early retirements.


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## Brendan Burgess

Hi Folks

this has just disintegrated into pure PS bashing and serves no further function.

Brendan


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