Does anyone in the Irish Government (Public Service) actually answer phones

[dereko1969]

Re: Does anyone in the Irish Government actually answer phones

the OP mentioned the VRO, now is it not the case that at VRO offices most staff will be engaged for a good portion of their day in checking vehicles outside the office? therefore is the OP suggesting that specific staff be hired to simply answer phones ie extra administrative staff?

 

[Ciaraella]

Re: Does anyone in the Irish Government actually answer phones

The Revenue service is excellent, when ringing the 1890 number you are told in minutes and seconds how long you will be waiting to speak to someone, something that Sky and NTL could do with.

 

[quarterfloun]

Re: Does anyone in the Irish Government actually answer phones

The Revenue service is excellent, when ringing the 1890 number you are told in minutes and seconds how long you will be waiting to speak to someone, something that Sky and NTL could do with.

The difference is if I do not want to pay for NTL or SKy you can take your money elsewhere. The civil service is not optional - there is only one. God help you if you need them to do something in a hurry - A FIS claim took me three months. FIS is there to protect low income families.

And as for sacking the useless gits - the unions have it so tight that these useless gits are in a job for life - all they do is go in, put on the lights on but no-one home sign and collect the salary at the end of the week.

Privatise the Civil Service, put SLA's in place and penalise those who do not deliver bang for buck.

 

[boris]

Re: Does anyone in the Irish Government actually answer phones

And as for sacking the useless gits - the unions have it so tight that these useless gits are in a job for life - all they do is go in, put on the lights on but no-one home sign and collect the salary at the end of the week.

Privatise the Civil Service, put SLA's in place and penalise those who do not deliver bang for buck.

Again the proverbial tarring of the same brush for all civil/public servants.

Look at the following website's pdf [broken link removed], especially page 9 of the magazine.

"Throughout the economic slump of the 1980’s, sections of the media, most notoriously the ‘Independent’ group, economists and other snake oil salesmen joined with self-important politicians in pursuit of cheap publicity in blaming the country’s woes on Public Servants who were said to be over-paid, cosseted and in receipt of outlandishly inflated

pensions etc., etc. This culminated in the infamous ‘Fur-Lined Mouse- Trap’ article in the Irish Independent."​

Civil Servants are constrained by their contracts, Official Secrets Act etc. from defending themselves so it is quite easy to knock them about.​

 

[z103]

So during the last slump we also had a wasteful, bloated public sector?

Again the proverbial tarring of the same brush for all civil/public servants.

It is acceptable to tar all civil/public servants with the same brush because they do have one common factor. All of them chose to work in the public sector.

 

[quarterfloun]

Re: Does anyone in the Irish Government actually answer phones

If civil servants were actually customer orientated they would have no difficulties with privatisation. Without giving too much away under the Official Secrets Act would civil servants be happy to work in the real world with no guaranteed pensions, a full working week and a full amount of work to get through every day would they be happy? Of course not. So until there is equality between civil & public there will always be the perception that civil servants have it easy. I could regale you with stories of my life experiences with these people in Ireland & the UK. I suppose the difference between me and Boris is that I do not believe it is right for older Public Sector workers to sit around knitting sweaters because they cannot upskill to using computers - first hand hearsay I'll admit but a trusted source nevertheless.

 

[boris]

So during the last slump we also had a wasteful, bloated public sector?


It is acceptable to tar all civil/public servants with the same brush because they do have one common factor. All of them chose to work in the public sector.

Actually the recent OECD report stated that the Irish Civil Service was understaffed using comparatives with the rest of Europe.



Also you seem so have missed the point. The mark I was making is that just because of a small group of civil servants who are not pulling their weight does not mean that all civil servants are doing the same. If that was the case, then the organs of Government would completely grind to a halt.

Finally I do agree with you (I have to use other Dept's as well in a personal capacity) I don't think that all Government employees are all the same. While things were like that 15-20 years ago, there has been a huge tightening up on abuses etc. since then.

They didn't cause the current downturn.

 

[Complainer]

We should all be on 7 hours a day and get back to having a life away from work again. Its a bit of a dream right now but I do think that we tend to spend way to much time either at work or in work mode (dam mobiles) at least I do anyway and its becoming harder to see the benefit coming from my extra hours.

You could be onto something here. Could there be a link between increasing anti-social behaviour and family breakdowns and decreasing voluntary activity and the additional pressures in the work environment from recent years.

I agree... and any employee who obstructs that reform should be shown the door.

You'd need to clarify your definition of 'obstruct'. At times (both public and private sector), I've 'obstructed' organisational change for very good reasons, where it was very clear to me that the change wasn't going to work, wasn't thought through, was going to impact customers negatively etc. Should I have been shown the door?

 

[liaconn]

Re: Does anyone in the Irish Government actually answer phones

That is a fair point I have to say. The only problem is that the private sector "useless gits" have a fair chance of being fired if they continue to be "usesless gits" whereas it seems nigh impossible to get fired in the civil service. From my experience, the useless/lazy gits tend to be moved on to new sections or departments rather than getting fired which is not ideal.

I agree with you and believe me, that is just as frustrating for the rest of us in the civil service. We would love to see these problem staff get the kick they deserve. My point though was that, just because there are some useless lazy people in the Civil Service does not entitle people to come on message boards like this and make sweeping statements about all civil servants.

 

[liaconn]

So during the last slump we also had a wasteful, bloated public sector?


It is acceptable to tar all civil/public servants with the same brush because they do have one common factor. All of them chose to work in the public sector.

Yes and some of them work damn hard and are absolutely brilliant at their job. Why does choosing to work in the public sector mean you have to tolerate being lumped in with the minority who don't do their job properly? That really doesn't make sense.

 

[boris]

Yes and some of them work damn hard and are absolutely brilliant at their job. Why does choosing to work in the public sector mean you have to tolerate being lumped in with the minority who don't do their job properly? That really doesn't make sense.

Total and absolutely agree with you Liaconn. Have spent the last 15 years working damned hard in my present and other positions and have had the honour of working with colleagues for whom I hold the highest respect due to their integrity and goodwill in their job. Am getting very tired of these people blaming the ills of the entire world on the civil service.

Yes we know that it is not a perfect environment and not every is going ot satisfy everyone but we get most things done right. If we didn't then both private and public industry would grind to a halt.

On a final and related point, I just happened to watch the repeat of "The Panel" last night with Kevin Myers guesting on the first slot. While I sometimes find Mr. Myers entertaining if somewhat eccentric in his column and comments, he made an accusation that ALL public servants partake in the exercise of taking 8 uncertified sick days in any one year and that there is a culture of doing so. In my experience (and those of my colleagues) what a load of rubbish.

But then Adolf Hitler supposedly did say "If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed."

 

[Caveat]

... ALL public servants partake in the exercise of taking 8 uncertified sick days in any one year

I doubt it.

...and that there is a culture of doing so.

But based on my experience, I have no doubt that this is true.

 

[Purple]

I see some very interesting posts above. Here’s a question to public sector employees:
If a colleague who you knew was utterly useless and abused the system was sacked and his sacking resulted in a union picket on your place of work would you pass that picket?

 

[BoscoTalking]

I had reason to deal with this very department recently - not only did they answer the phone but the person emailed me the details, rang me to see did i get it and was very helpful and, well, intelligent in what she was explaining. i have called other departmets and the call was put on hold maybe 3 times because the person had no idea of information she was supposed to know.

 

[boris]

I see some very interesting posts above. Here’s a question to public sector employees:
If a colleague who you knew was utterly useless and abused the system was sacked and his sacking resulted in a union picket on your place of work would you pass that picket?

Purple

Very good question and I have quickly discussed it with my colleagues here. Just remember that the civil/public service has many different areas so I can only discuss this question from the viewpoint that I and my colleagues have experienced.

There would never be an occasion in the public/civil sevice where a picket for the above situation would occur. There are mechanisms and procedures in place whereby a sudden sacking could not occur. Employees are given numerous warnings (recorded I must add). Then the Unions would be involved to ensure that a workers rights are
being upheld (to protect against bullying I would suspect). After this process has been done, the employee would then be let go. Therefore the unions would be totally involved and would not therefore have the recourse to go to place a picket.

The other reason that these mechanisms are in place is that they have to protect the Exchequer in the case of wrongful dismissal.

Finally one of colleagues here stated that he has never seen a case where pickets have been placed where a person has been dismissed (and he has over 30 years experience).

So Purple it just would not happen in the Civil Service. Now Semi States could be a different matter....................

Back to work.

 

[aircobra19]

I see some very interesting posts above. Here’s a question to public sector employees:
If a colleague who you knew was utterly useless and abused the system was sacked and his sacking resulted in a union picket on your place of work would you pass that picket?

Purple is waiting for someone to say they'll take a sickie. Or they'd never get the phone call to tell them about it as the phone would be off the hook. LOL. I can't see the situation arising as described, my last experience of a picket, where pretty much everyone agreed with the picket. A lot of people still crossed it anyway.

Most of the places I've worked public and private sector have had very similar sick leave policies. So where its available it gets seems to get used about the same. Obviously where theres no sick policy people just come in and spread flu's etc around the office, or take the hit in the pay packet.

 

[z103]

If a colleague who you knew was utterly useless and abused the system was sacked and his sacking resulted in a union picket on your place of work would you pass that picket?

So it seems people don't get the sack in the public sector, especially for being 'utterly useless'.

 

[boris]

So it seems people don't get the sack in the public sector, especially for being 'utterly useless'.

Yes they do. I know of one case near me that is in the process at the moment. Unfortunately they do have to go through the motions before they place the case on the Head of Departments desk for approval. Also I could not put a number on the number of cases that I have seen in my career where it was justified.

 

[Purple]

What if the picket was placed because the union said that correct procedures were not followed (even though you knew the guy sacked deserved it)?
To broaden the question; would you pass a picket if you disagreed with it or would you act in solidarity with your comrades?

 

[boris]

There would never be an occasion in the public/civil sevice where a picket for the above situation would occur. There are mechanisms and procedures in place whereby a sudden sacking could not occur.

Purple

Think I have already answered this.

They are good systems in place for this. Hence that is why there are very few industrial disputes in the Civil Service due to this. Lets broaden my answer as you have broadened your question. What about the cases of fraud, assualt etc. People are obviously shown the door then and prosecuted (hopefully).

Finally as a last point, why do you keep referring to employees in the Civil Service in the male gender when the service is made of 2/3 female employees.