€1000 tax-free pandemic bonus

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Based on government logic in relation to the "front-line" health care workers' bonus, we should pay airline staff, flight-crew but not cabin-crew, extra every time an aeroplane takes off, we should pay fire-fighters extra for attending fires, armed Gardai should be paid more for unholstering or maybe discharging firearms, steeplejacks should be paid extra every time they more above ground level and lorry drivers should get bonuses when their lorries drive on public roads, and so on.

You can see the logic - TDs get paid extra for showing up at their place of work for work - they see it as equitable!
 
Are you OK Carnmore? Did a handsome young doctor run off with your missus or something?


Honestly, the petty cribbing about a very modest gratuity to a group of people who literally put their lives on the line. Would you like to tell Dr Dr Syed Waqqar Ali's family that his death is just part of the job he's paid to do?



No-one in the health service signed up to work in conditions like this. These conditions were effectively unforeseeable for the health service and for all of us. It literally wasn't 'part of their job', but the vast majority did their job, putting their lives on the line, often having to disconnect from families for extended periods to manage the risk, undergoing fairly severe physical discomfort (try wearing medical layers of PPE for a couple of hours if you're unsure) for entire shifts for months on end. Many are low paid staff, the porters, the cleaners, the HCAs basically at minimum wage levels or slightly above.

If you're so convinced about the great valuable benefits on offer, perhaps you should have considered signing up yourself or maybe volunteering in a hospital?
 
If that was the government logic, they'd have included Gardai and firefighters in the scheme. But they didn't.

I don't think flight crew or Gardai or steeplejacks or lorry drivers had to spend their full shifts in heavy grade PPE for entire shifts risking a life-threatening infection for months on end.
 
RetirementPlan said:
Are you OK Carnmore? Did a handsome young doctor run off with your missus or something?
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My ex-missus/mister seemingly being you?
RetirementPlan said:
Honestly, the petty cribbing about a very modest gratuity to a group of people who literally put their lives on the line. Would you like to tell Dr Dr Syed Waqqar Ali's family that his death is just part of the job he's paid to do?
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Opening the floodgates to what'll soon escalate to €1000 per capita is modest..Only to an institutionalised public servant
Next up, the army not signing up for defence duties? Lollipop ladies not signing up for stopping traffic?
RetirementPlan said:
If you're so convinced about the great valuable benefits on offer, perhaps you should have considered signing up yourself or maybe volunteering in a hospital?
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You've already used that old chestnut. Do try some originality.
 

HSE Porters/Cleaners salary scale is €28,443pa €13.97per hour €34,199pa €16.80ph.


HCA €29,562pa €14.52ph to €38,100pa €18.72ph

Hardly minimum or near minimum wage. These grades will also likely work unsocial hours and receive premium pay.

Bug bear of mine that they are presumed to be ow paid.
 
becky said:
Bug bear of mine that they are presumed to be low paid.
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It’s a myth pedalled by those with a vested interest in justifying their perpetual demands for more pay and less work.
The post you quoted illustrates this point well.
 
RetirementPlan said:
I don't think flight crew or Gardai or steeplejacks or lorry drivers had to spend their full shifts in heavy grade PPE for entire shifts risking a life-threatening infection for months on end.
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Neither did or do "front-line" health-care workers. A light face-mask, disposable gloves, light plastic apron, disposable over-shoes, their regular uniforms. Where's this "heavy grade PPE" of which you speak? You may be thinking of the stuff surgical or radiological staff have to wear or the stuff firefighters have to endure for long periods in life-threatening conditions?

Why this widespread adoption of military and quasi-military terms in medical, Garda (the four Es), and business-speak over the last few years? Look up the original meaning of "triage" for example and you'll see it has nothing to do with its HSE current usage. I think all the slackers just want to sound like they're stars in Casualty, The Apprentice, Z Cars, Hill Street Blues, etc while the reality is they're in their own very poor imitations of The Simpsons or Tom & Jerry.
 
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For the first few months there was legitimate fear among many nurses and doctors but they went in and did their job. For that they are to be commended. The data at the time from China was incomplete but it did strongly suggest that the disease wasn't that dangerous and fears that there would be double figure mortality rates were unfounded. Never the less the vast majority turned up for work, unlike what happened in some other countries.
The self congratulation has kind of taken the good out of it though. Nobody can get a work of thanks in over the constant noise of extravagant egotism. If you're great people tell you, you don't have to keep telling everyone.
 
RetirementPlan said:
Honestly, the petty cribbing about a very modest gratuity to a group of people who literally put their lives on the line.
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I support the payment. I think it's appropriate, but every time a roofer goes up to do his job he's putting his like on the line. Same for scaffolders and fishermen and all the other jobs that, over any given decade, are way more dangerous than nursing or a medical sector job. In the US medical sector jobs are amongst the safest there is. The impact that Covid has had on the statistics is not yet available but it's unlikely that they'll get the top spot.
 
Bug bear of mine that you forget that most of these roles have been outsourced, along with cleaning and canteen roles, and are literally at minimum wage.
 
Have you seen the marks a welding mask leaves?

My hands and arms are covered in scars from working. I've had the top of my finger cut open to the bone and stitched back together with no aesthetic (no time, it was swelling too fast and I would have lost it if they'd waited. I lost two days work because of that), finger nails pulled off, puncture wounds in one side of my hand and out the other (I missed a half a days work over that one) and burns from hot metal on my face, neck and chest.

Ask anyone a building site, a saw mill, a meat processing plant or a engineering shop and they'll show you their scars.
Most people have been wearing masks all day in work (most people were/are still going to work).
As I said, in the first few months of the pandemic medical and nursing staff were brave and professional but this stuff is embarrassing.
 
You should think about joining a union, to make sure your employer provides safe work places and practices.

How did Covid affect things for welders, for building sites, for meat plants, for engineering shops?
 
RetirementPlan said:
You should think about joining a union, to make sure your employer provides safe work places and practices.
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It's an inherently dangerous job but it has got much safer in recent years. Nothing to do with Unions though, people in the real economy know that Unions just take your money and then cost you your job as they put your employer out of business. Then there's "Union rates"; the guys here couldn't afford the pay cut. The biggest problem we have from a health and safety perspective is trying to get guys to use the PPE and follow the rules.

RetirementPlan said:
How did Covid affect things for welders, for building sites, for meat plants, for engineering shops?
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The welders in construction lost their jobs so were on the PUP, building sites were closed so those people were out of work too. Meat plants had Covid outbreaks but they kept working. Covid and PPE may have resulted in more injuries.
Engineering shops that were involved in the aerospace industry have been hit very hard. Lots of them were on the PUP. Those in the medical device sector have never been busier.
 
Unions have done huge work on ensuring safe workplaces, particularly in construction. I don't know anything about welding (as the old joke goes) but I know that lots of dangerous jobs can be made safe, particularly when people aren't incentivised to cut corners.

Thanks for confirming that the welders and meat processers and engineers were all looked after through government funding already.
 
Quality driven businesses can't cut corners. If they do the customer won't pay them and will drop them as a supplier. We have to achieve a minimum quality rating of 99.997% to keep our major customers.
RetirementPlan said:
Thanks for confirming that the welders and meat processers and engineers were all looked after through government funding already.
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They were indeed, though like every other skilled person in the real economy they took a major hit to their incomes if they lost their job. The ones that worked through the pandemic were glad to do so, even if they risked getting Covid. We sent some older and vulnerable people home during the first lockdown (on full pay) and they all wanted to come back to work as soon as possible.
 
It's yourself who said they were cutting corners on PPE and following rules.

Maybe all the employers in your 'real economy' should start rewarding the commitment of their staff, just as Govt is doing for the health service?
 
RetirementPlan said:
It's yourself who said they were cutting corners on PPE and following rules.
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I don't understand that. Getting employees to follow rules around safety is difficult. Look at all the MRSA outbreaks in hospitals over the years. They are caused almost exclusively by staff not washing their hands and following protocols. If an employer discipline employees for not using PPE the employee can take a case against them and will win.

RetirementPlan said:
Maybe all the employers in your 'real economy' should start rewarding the commitment of their staff, just as Govt is doing for the health service?
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Yes, they should. I've already suggested that the Government allows employers give a once off €500 tax free to every employee. We'd certainly do it and the Supermarkets and Amazon and all the other companies who coined throughout the Pandemic should do it too. GP's and Pharmacists made a fortune through the vaccination program. They should be rewarding their employees too.
 
But surely you just fire people in the private sector if they don't do what their told? Where's all the performance management and accountability that we keep hearing about? Are their bonuses not dependent on compliance with rules or do they just get money for nothing? Sounds like more people need to be fired there.

There may well be an arguement for a specific tax break for all employees for a modest bonus, in fairness
 
Tell me more about these 'floodgates'? Do you think that you've maybe jumped the shark in your great leap from the 100,000 health care workers to the entire population?

Poor analogies there - it would be more like sending the army out on NATO missions when they joined up in a state of neutrality, or sending lollipop men and women giving out parking tickets. Working in Covid settings was not foreseeable. Unless you had some crystal ball there?

The 'old chestnut' is still true. All these 'amazing benefits' are available to anyone, if you want to work as an outsourced cleaner or HCA in a hospital. As P Flynn said, you should try it sometime.
 
It's very hard to sack people, and rightly so. That's why assessing people in the first 12 months is so important. Unlike the State sector we don't manage them up. That said it's more about the systems and processes we run and the flexibility of the workforce than the "slackers" we carry.
RetirementPlan said:
There may well be an arguement for a specific tax break for all employees for a modest bonus, in fairness
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Yep, where the employer can afford it. I'd add income limits too. People on high incomes don't need it and so shouldn't get it.
 
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