Public sector pay and the Croke Park Agreement

[Baron von Biffo]

Croke Park Savings Accurate

The Department of Public Expenditure & Reform strongly refutes the allegations made that savings under the Croke Park Agreement, as reported by the Implementation Body, have been overstated. This is completely incorrect.

No circular was issued to Government Departments instructing them to calculate non-pay savings under the Croke Park Agreement by using an estimate for overheads of 40% of total salary cost. This is incorrect.

The guidelines referred to by Grant Thornton are Regulatory Impact Assessment guidelines which were published in 2009 prior to the Croke Park Agreement, and have nothing to do with the calculation of Croke Park savings.

The Grant Thornton Report says nothing about the approach taken by other Departments to the calculation of non-pay savings under Croke Park. It is not correct that Grant Thornton said that other Departments used a 40 per cent factor. This is a total misrepresentation of their Report. The estimated savings reports from every Department are verified by the Secretary General of each Department as accounting officer.

External accountants are engaged by the Implementation Body to independently evaluate samples of savings reported. They have reported on each occasion that they are satisfied with the reported savings.

In their report earlier this year Grant Thornton made clear that they were satisfied with the savings they examined including those of the Department of Agriculture. They concluded “the declared savings reported by management in each of the four projects were found to be reasonable estimates”.

We understand that Grant Thornton spoke with Deputy Eoghan Murphy and confirmed that they were satisfied with all the savings reported.

There is no conclusion in their report that savings were overestimated.

Pay bill savings reported under the Agreement are based on the average annualised savings per employee arising from the reduction in staff numbers across the public service during the relevant review period as well as other reductions in the costs of the public service pay bill.

The €810m in such savings reported by the Body are an accurate reflection of the pay bill savings facilitated by the Agreement and are in no way overestimated.

In relation to the headline in today’s Irish Times, “Troika is dissatisfied with scale of Croke Park savings”, the Troika has never expressed concern in respect of the Croke Park savings, a fact that we have confirmed with the Troika today.


Department of Public Expenditure and Reform Press Office

So the media and right wing politicians have been talking sh!te?

The very bedrock of my world has been rocked.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

No- the Croke Park Agreement is still a fraud operated by a backscratchers club. And the decimation is still on its way.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

You do realise that the 'Implementation body' referred to as finding the savings correct is actually an Irish Government unit and not the Troika itself?

It would be rare indeed if one section of the Irish Government were to express itself unhappy with the savings identified by another.

That press release is carefully worded- a bit of vaticanese going on there. Nowhere does it actually say how much each department used as an estimate of 'non-pay' savings. 25%? 30% or 40%?

It carefully avoids giving any such estimation. And I never believe a word out of the Irish Government when it says 'we have spoken to the Troika and they agree with us'.

[Baron von Biffo]

Hard right journalist Stephen Collins on News at One now painting a picture of pay cuts or service cuts. In other words PS workers should be forced to subsidise public services for the rest of us.

[Baron von Biffo]

Collins wants us to believe that people who've had 14% pay cuts on top of the increases in taxes have got away with very little pain.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Well why should one in five workers in the state be exempt from subsidising public services? Or do they already do that warming the economy with contributory welcoming smiles when you have to deal with them?

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Collins wants us to believe that people who've had 14% pay cuts on top of the increases in taxes have got away with very little pain.

When was this 14% pay cut announced? Or is this one of those 'real term reductions in future allowances and pay awards' that they never had in the first place?

[Spectabilis]

http://www.impact.ie/Croke-Park-Agreement/Reforms-delivered/Summary-of-progress-on-savings-and-reform-under-the-Croke-Park-agreement.htm
“You will be aware that public service gross pay was cut by an average 14% (through direct pay cuts and the introduction of the so-called ˜pension levy') before the Croke Park agreement came into force. Pay for new entrants has been reduced by an additional 10%, which means that new entrants to the public service are being paid almost a quarter less than in 2008.”

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Ah- right so there have been no pay cuts for the bulk of the civil service, only a reduction in 10% for new entrants who would be on the lowest pay scale. Even though i believe there is a recruitment embargo ... which means no pay cuts at all have been levied.

And, as suspected, Biffo was misusing the pension levy as a 'pay cut'.

Nice to get into the specifics isn't it?

[Spectabilis]

http://www.impact.ie/Croke-Park-Agreement/Reforms-delivered/Summary-of-progress-on-savings-and-reform-under-the-Croke-Park-agreement.htm
“You will be aware that public service gross pay was cut by an average 14% (through direct pay cuts and the introduction of the so-called ˜pension levy') before the Croke Park agreement came into force. Pay for new entrants has been reduced by an additional 10%, which means that new entrants to the public service are being paid almost a quarter less than in 2008.”

If you read that again Cap'n, you will see you missed the essential.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Direct pay cuts for whom? New entrants? Those at the top of the tree? Or are we talking about percentages taken off scheduled pay rises?

The devil, like the civil servant, will be in the details. Sure if 14% had been taken off civil servants pay they'd simply have fled to the private sector and the public sector would be bare of talent altogether.

I remember that one from the benchmarking days.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

How many civil servants have done just that? Cashed in their chips and taken up industry leadership roles in the private sector where their talents would be much more appreciated?

That was always the threat if public sector pay wasn't kept at a certain level wasn't it? I look forward to seeing the braindrain from public sector to private sector in the figures in Ireland before long.

[Baron von Biffo]

http://www.impact.ie/Croke-Park-Agreement/Reforms-delivered/Summary-of-progress-on-savings-and-reform-under-the-Croke-Park-agreement.htm
“You will be aware that public service gross pay was cut by an average 14% (through direct pay cuts and the introduction of the so-called ˜pension levy') before the Croke Park agreement came into force. Pay for new entrants has been reduced by an additional 10%, which means that new entrants to the public service are being paid almost a quarter less than in 2008.”

There was a young lad on telly recently who's studying to be a teacher and he said he's trying to discourage his younger brother from following him.

Completely unpredictable salary levels, fewer protections under employment law than other workers and endless vilification from the media and politicians has made teaching a very unattractive option for school leavers.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

'fewer protections under employment law' .... what sort of crap is this? Do you not see the threads where mysterious 'happenings' occur to public money via various state bodies such as Fas, the Revenue Commissioners, CIE and elsewhere in the public and civil service- the Gardai who are convicted of grevious bodily harm in an assault and wonder when they can 'put it all behind them' and go back to work?

Have the people thieving and presenting false invoices at CIE lost their jobs yet? Have any of the Fas staff who took holidays in Australia on the public purse lost their jobs yet?

What happened in disciplinary terms to those staff at the Revenue Commissioners who were actually falsifying computer data because of a personal grudge?

Not only would you be unemployed for doing any of these things in the private sector you would be up in court and subject to a court order to repay money.

'Fewer protections under employment law'- complete fabrication. It doesn't help civil or public sector employees to announce rubbish like this.

Jesus- the most cossetted and protected from consequences employees in the country. Teachers are the only profession in the country who can take leave of absence for twenty to thirty years to embark on a political career and still rack up appearance points in their old job.

Jesus. The sense of entitlement.

[Spectabilis]

You are incorrect on two points I believe: One, the leave of absence rules were changeda few years ago.

Secondly, short of sending you one of my pension payslips, where the 14% paycut appears as a minus sum for the last few years, I probably cannot convince you of the fact that all salaries and pensions were cut by 14% before Croke Park.