As many as 1,200 Irish civil servants earning over €70,000 & receiving pay increments
More than 1,200 staff in the Civil Service are on salaries in excess of €70,000 per year are receiving incremental pay increases, according to new official figures released last night.
Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin said that overall 12,463 staff in the Civil Service are this year due to receive either an annual increment or a long-service increment. He said the number of civil servants due to receive increments next year would fall to 11,280.
The Minister said about 10 per cent of staff who receive increments are earning salaries of more than €70,000. He said 76 per cent of employees who receive increments had salaries of less than €50,000.
The details were provided in letters sent by the Minister to TDs Seán Fleming of Fianna Fáil and Independent Stephen Donnelly. Both deputies asked parliamentary questions in recent months about the payment of increments.
The data provided by the Minister showed that the largest group of staff in the Civil Service who are due to receive increments this year – more than 8,600 – receive salaries of between €25,000 and €50,000.
Mr Howlin, in his letters, again defended the payment of increments which has been criticised by Ministers such as Leo Varadkar. “The data confirms my view that the vast majority of persons who are on incremental pay scales are the lower-paid and people who have been recruited to the public service more recently.”
“On this basis, there are fairer ways to control the cost of public pay, given that only a proportion of public servants, in particular lower-paid and front-line staff, would be affected by a suspension of increments.”
Mr Howlin said the suspension of increments would have the effect of reducing pay, “particularly for the groups with long incremental scales and relatively flat promotional structures, in particular teachers, clerical staff and the Garda Síochána”.
Meanwhile, a review of more than 800 allowances paid to staff across the public service which has been carried out over recent months by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is expected to be considered by the Cabinet today.
However, informed sources said last night that given the complexity of the issue as well as the number of items on the Cabinet agenda, it was unlikely that a decision would be taken today by the Government on the issue.
Some unions have warned that any move to cut existing allowances would be in breach of the Croke Park agreement.
The Government currently pays out about €1.5 billion on allowances for staff each year. It has set a target of making savings of €75 million this year.
Severely obese children’s hearts
already at risk to serious Heart disease
Severely obese children are putting their heart at danger to early heart disease even while they are still in primary school, according to a Dutch study.
Heart disease is normally associated with middle age, but the early warning signs were detected in children between the ages of two and 12.
Two-thirds of the 307 children studied had a least one early symptom such as high blood pressure.
The findings were presented in Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Obesity is a growing problem around the world with more people becoming obese and at a younger age.
Two-year-olds with a Body Mass Index, a measure of obesity, greater than 20.5 are classed as severely obese. By the age of 18, a BMI of 35 is a sign of severe obesity.
Researchers at the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam collected data from the Dutch Paediatric Surveillance Unit between 2005 and 2007.
They looked at warning signs of heart disease in the severely obese children.
“Remarkably, 62% of severely obese children under 12 years of age already had one or more cardiovascular risk factors,” the study concluded.
More than half had high blood pressure, and there were also cases of low “good cholesterol” and high blood sugar, which can result in Type 2 diabetes.
The researchers said this “may lead to cardiovascular disease in young adulthood”.
Doireann Maddock, a senior cardiac nurse with the British Heart Foundation, said: “Although it was a small study, the findings leave a bad taste in the mouth.
“It’s a huge concern so many obese children were identified as already having at least one risk factor for heart disease, including high blood pressure, high blood glucose and problems with cholesterol levels.
“However, this is a problem that can be addressed by stopping young people becoming overweight and obese in the first place.
“Highlighting the importance of healthy eating and physical activity from an early age will help protect the heart health of future generations.”
Joan Burton points to concerns over tax shelters in Ireland
The Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton told the MacGill Summer School of her concern that some aspects of the Irish tax system fail to command proper allegiance.
The Minister highlighted “the many shelters that enable many very wealthy people to escape paying the share of their income that is needed to finance the efforts of the State”.
“Personally, I cannot reconcile the lax rules on residence that facilitate tax exiles with any notion of loyalty to the State,” she added.
She was not an advocate of “super-high” income tax rates but there were “far too many opportunities for some groups and individuals to escape the level of contribution that can reasonably be expected from those in their position”.
She said: “The extent to which we pay our taxes is a measure of our loyalty to our State, and the extent to which the State returns our commitment with quality services is the measure of the State’s loyalty to its citizens.”
She added that many of the business people who prospered in the boom years “have shown an extraordinary lack of loyalty to the State in putting their private wealth beyond the reach of their creditors, even when those creditors include the ordinary taxpayers”.
“I am thinking in particular of some senior figures who have gone to extreme lengths to put their assets beyond the reach of the banks, many of them now totally State-owned or heavily reliant on State support.
“There are some who comment negatively on an entitlement culture among people claiming welfare, but quite frankly I am struck by the sense of entitlement of people who want to maintain a millionaire lifestyle while leaving the ordinary citizen to pick up the tab for their reckless borrowing.
“We should not debase the language of our political life. Issues that concern right and wrong, fraud and theft, crime and punishment, merit description in terms that do not mitigate their impact. When we soften our language in situations that suggest there is one law for corporate crime and a different one for routine theft or welfare fraud, we become complicit with wrongdoing that corrodes trust.
“I take heart from some recent court decisions which suggest that we are finally beginning to take white-collar crime seriously. The conviction and exemplary sentence in the Waterford corruption case is indicative of this.
“I can assure you, too, the future will be different, and this Government will put in the hands of the judiciary plenty of legal weapons with which to deal with bribery and corruption allegations,” she added.
Hogan’s non-regulation approach continues with household bins free-for-all ‘surprises everybody’
The decision by the Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan to forsake a tenet of the programme for government and not introduce regulation of waste collection will surprise some and dismay others, but it does not necessarily show partiality towards the private waste sector.
Allowing the free-for-all in the household bin market to prevail is more a continuation of his non-interventionist approach to waste that previously benefited Dublin City Council when, soon after taking up the environment post, he said he would not intervene to prevent the construction of the Poolbeg incinerator.
The private sector has argued that abandoning plans to introduce competitive tendering was the only logical option. The policy had been overtaken by events, with almost all local authorities having exited the waste collection market, and there was talk from some operators of legal action if the State chose to interfere in their businesses.
Dublin City Council was the main force behind the tendering proposal, having tried to introduce the policy in its own area in 2007. Panda and Greenstar took action against the council and the High Court in 2009 found in their favour.
The Minister’s decision might now seem an irrelevancy to the council, which last year took the decision to leave the market, selling its waste collection business to Greyhound.
However, the council has not withdrawn its appeal against the court’s decision and its submission on Hogan’s new policy, calling for the tendering system, was made after it decided to stop collecting waste.
The reason the council outlined in the submission was it will need to have legal ownership of the waste collected by private operators and the right to determine the facility at which the waste will be disposed to make the Poolbeg incinerator “bankable”.
The council has been trying to build the plant for more than a decade. Construction started in December 2009 but was suspended the following May and has yet to resume. Negotiations are continuing with the US developer Covanta, the council says. An estimated €80 million in public money has been invested in the project so far, including the cost of land acquisition.
Hogan’s decision to wash his hands of the waste collection row looks like a triumph for the private sector. However, some larger players might have benefited from competitive tendering as it would have weeded out smaller operators nibbling at the edges of their markets.
Private waste companies have been hit hard by the economic downturn. Limerick-based waste company Mr Binman was placed in receivership last year, while Greenstar, the largest waste operator in the country, has effectively been on the market for almost two years. The company, which is owned by NTR, posted a loss of €64 million for the year ended March 2011.
The new policy comes as Bord Na Móna yesterday reported a €23.1 million write-down in the value of its waste business, AES, last year. Chief executive Gabriel D’Arcy said waste industry volumes had shrunk by 30 per cent since it acquired AES, while the number of small players in the market had grown, prompting his call for industry “consolidation”.
Hireland for Ireland 5,000 jobs pledged in hiring scheme
An initiative to encourage employers to “hire instead of fire” has resulted in about 5,000 jobs being pledged and 2,000 positions filled in less than six months.
Hireland is a not-for-profit movement aimed at encouraging employers to hire some of the thousands of skilled people who are out of work.
The job pledges made on the hireland.iewebsite have come from hundreds of companies across sectors such as software design, engineering, pharmaceuticals, sales, marketing, retail, hotel, hospitality and sports and leisure.
Lucy Masterson, co-founder of Hireland, said the group had now surpassed its original target of 5,000 job pledges in the six months since its launch.
On average, companies have pledged between one and five jobs. The vast majority of job promises came from companies in Dublin (3,128), followed by Cork and Galway.
Ms Masterson said all job pledges would be monitored to ensure that they were not empty promises and that the posts were actually filled.
She said the group never imagined the extent of the support it would receive from the Irish business community and the media industry.
“This truly is a people-powered movement, which is being run on the goodwill of those with a can-do attitude. Since its launch on the 16th of January this year, over 2,000 new people are taking home a weekly wage, which is just brilliant,” she said.
The group is now planning to develop a network of volunteers across the State as part of its “county call” campaign.
“We believe that local communities have a passionate pride and self-belief,” Ms Masterson said.
“All we need is one person per county to help us kick-start the local movement. So we’re looking for one volunteer representative from each county who would act as the local Hireland lead.”
Those interested in getting involved as the local representative can log on to hireland.ie/yes-we-willfor further details. Closing dates for receipt of applications is September 30th, 2012.
The idea for Hireland came from a chat around the kitchen table between Ms Masterson, a lecturer in social and not-for-profit marketing, and some friends last year.
“We thought, what if we could challenge the current status quo of firing to one of hiring?” she said.
“What if we could get employers thinking differently – about the benefits of creating a job instead of cutting?”
The 2,000 positions filled so far have been in firms including Byrne Curtin Kelly, Ely Winebar, Murex Advanced Technologies, Hauste Group, Red Tree Consulting and Spirit Motor Group.
The Moon to blaze alongside Mars and Saturn over Ireland
Two spectacular celestial events will take place over the next two nights, when the Moon will be placed next to Mars on Tuesday and next to Saturn on Wednesday in the sky above Ireland just after sunset.
Astronomy Ireland says that the Moon, Mars, and Saturn can all be observed using the naked eye, and has urged everyone to go outside on both evenings and use the Moon as a ‘signpost’ to spot the planets for themselves.
Those who wish to see the ice caps on Mars and the famous rings and moons around Saturn are advised to bring along a telescope.
“This week is great for astronomy with two conjunctions between the Moon and planets,” said David Moore, Editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine. “I’ll be out viewing them myself and I hope everyone else will too! Of course, if you have a telescope, you’ll even get an extra close look at these two stunning planets.”
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