indebtedgal
Registered User
- Messages
- 217
i am in shock, i have just been told by a friend who works in the hse that she is applying for a career break of 5 years in order to stay at home with her kids. great you may say, good for her! however, she is entitled to 1/3rd of her salary for the duration. another friend who is a civil servant confirms that is also the case for them. the friend who works for the hse says that the break will categorically be offered to her becuse it will involve too much paperwork for her boss to turn it down. tbh, i am incensed. the same girl has only worked about 3 months since her 1st child was born, she was out sick for the duration of her 2nd pregnancy because as she says herself she "couldn't be bothered" going in when she was going to get paid anyway. yes she is my friend but i can't find it in my heart to say thats great for you, not when there are people on trollys, not when there are kids waiting for treatment. not when our country is on its knees and we are all taking pay cuts. i am shortly returning to work after maternity leave and i am damn glad of a job to go back to. i am incensed that someone could take this time off and get money for it. i as a taxpayer am essentially paying her to stay at home an rear her kids while i will have to leave mine every morning to make ends meet. what are peoples opinions on this?
So what did you say to her?....
Good question.So what did you say to her?
There's little point moaning here about it when you had the opportunity to say something to the person in question yourself.
+1ps if you don't mind me saying so, your friend sounds like the kind of lazy wagon who gives public servants a bad name.
Yet more ill-informed public service bashing.
There is nothing wrong with the scheme but I can't see what it will achieve long term. People compare it to PTSB but in their case, they have seen a massive drop off in business but like in any cycle will probably see things pick up by the time people are due to return from the career breaks. If not, they won't hesitate to let people go.
The Civil and Public Sectors are offering a carrer break but one assumes there has been no drop off in demand for services so they obviously feel like they carry out the same work with less people. So why offer a career break? What is going to change in two years when it is time for all these people to come back? We will just go back to being overstaffed again in certain quarters unless they are hoping that natural wastage over the next two years will create space for the returning employees.
That requires very clever human resource management. Something the public sector is not well known for expecially with the Unions throwing obstacles in the way.
The career break has to be for 3 years and the department can wait up to year (unpaid) to give someone their job back so it is likely that most people that take this will be gone for 4 years.
The goverment is probably hoping that with natural wastage and early retirement schemes, the people leaving over the next 4 years will greatly outnumber the numbers due back from career break. The government is keen to get more flexibility in PS/CS so someone coming back from career break may not definitely get back to their old job.
I'm sure it won't run 100% smoothly but overall it is worth doing.
What is going to change in two years when it is time for all these people to come back?
I have nothing against the scheme but what I hear about the PTSB scheme, the majority of people who took it up were young lowly paid employees who just wanted to head off and travel or something. Apparently, they didn't get the numbers of middle management etc that they were looking for so didn't save as much money as they thought. Not hard to imagine the same happening here.
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