AH, Ireland. Don’t you just love it. A civil servant at the Department of the Taoiseach – the highest office in the land – has been on a career break for TWELVE YEARS.
Another, an assistant principal officer, holder of a top job in Micheal Martin HQ, has not been to the office for FIVE YEARS.
Off pursuing other things, while their jobs have remained open.
Don’t you just wish you were a civil servant?
Career breaks of 12 and five years would only be granted in the public sector.
Work in private industry and there wouldn’t be a snowball’s chance in hell of being granted leave from work year after year after year. It’s just not practical.
How can a business, or anything, run efficiently if employees are absent — without pay, fair enough — for such extraordinary lengths of time? Especially in key roles.
Career breaks of six months are available in a lot of jobs in the private sector, yes.
You may get lucky and be granted a leave of absence to pursue studies, or travel the world, or look after an ailing loved one for a year, max.
But 12 years — 4,380 days in total? That’s absurd. You’d be laughed out of the boss’s office.
Not so in the public service — the land of make believe. Career breaks are capped at five years in total, but can be extended well beyond that as the revelations show.
“I’m minding me sick mammy.” Or: “I fancy a trip round the world, but I’m gonna be at it for five years” Or: “I’m doing a PhD but am not the best at timekeeping, so mightn’t be back for seven years.”
All fine and dandy in public-sector fantasy world.
We have Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice to thank for asking questions in the Dail last week about the length of career breaks offered by the various departments of government.
It’s not just the taoiseach’s office. In the Department of Agriculture, a veterinary inspector has been on a career break for ten years, a research officer has had an eight-year career break and several inspectors and clerical officers had five years or more off.
All for solid reasons, no doubt. It’s not their fault, it’s the fault of a system that is so arcane, so out of touch with reality, that long career breaks don’t raise an eyebrow.
In the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment (a department that has an enormous workload that is only going to snowball) two civil servants were given career breaks extending beyond six years.
LAWLESSNESS PROBLEM
Our cities and towns are in the grip of a new lawlessness, yet 135 civil servants in the Department of Justice are enjoying time away from their desk.
Another 104 employees at the Department of Social Protection, which, since the pandemic and war in Ukraine, have been run off their feet keeping up with demand for services, are away too.
A further 44 are absent from the Departments of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs.
In total, across the government-attached civil service, some 538 workers are on career breaks, with more than 50 on leave for five years or more. Staggering numbers.
Not all departments supplied figures, and they don’t include teachers, workers in the HSE or anyone with a job in semi-state bodies, so numbers are higher.
‘DEFIES LOGIC’
TD Fitzmaurice reasoned: “If these people worked in the private sector they would not be allowed such long breaks.
“It defies logic that the civil service continues to operate in this manner, with hundreds of positions left in limbo, causing major staff-ing and operational issues.”
That’s putting it mildly. The laissez-faire attitude to career breaks in the civil service is symptomatic of the deep dysfunction at the heart of government that’s been evident for decades.
It’s a disease that threatens the proper functioning of our public services.
At this most dangerous time in world history, we need FULL desks and Trojan work.
But the urgency needed to tackle the enormous problems we face can’t exist when the machinery of the state operates, not to the demands of the real world, but to the sloth-like rhythm of a system that is more suited to the 1950s.
TRUMP-LIKE HAMMER NEEDED
A job in the civil service is a job for life. Careers aren’t on the line if anyone makes a hames of something. Office of Public Works, anyone? (Millions wasted on bike sheds, security huts and walls).
The politicians, who should be masters of the civil service, are instead its slaves.
TDs and senators come and go, the civil servant will be in situ till the end of time. So, they rule the roost.
The tables should be turned. A thump of a Trump-like hammer to raise productivity and end inefficiency would be no harm.
First off, end the career-breaks nonsense. Make civil servants accountable, with their jobs, if they fail.
Public service employees must be made to do what it says on the tin and SERVE the public, and at full throttle.
LET’S GET A MOVE ON
YOU can now travel by train from Paris to Berlin in eight hours.
When they upgrade the entire route in the next two years to high speed, it will take under five hours.
You can travel on high-speed rails between Paris and Milan, Barcelona and Toulouse, Brussels and Venice, and Brussels and Prague.
More trans-European routes are opening every other month.
Train travel in continental Europe is booming, with the full support of the European Union which is pumping money into trains as an affordable, fast and sustainable alternative to car and plane.
Rail operators are in furious competition. Prices are low and travellers are flocking to the iron horse in record numbers. Last year traffic climbed by seven per cent across Europe.
Here, meanwhile, we have drawn up plans to expand our rail network from the current 2,300km to 3,000km by, wait for it, 2050.
Twenty-five years to build 700km of track is a joke. They’d build that in Europe in a couple of years.
Having grandiose plans and no urgency is like having diarrhea and no backside.
While the state dithers, commuters here will continue to suffer from decades of underinvestment in rail.
We’ll have 25 years of slow, overcrowded trains while our European cousins enjoy swift, comfortable ones NOW.
A DRAM CHEEK, GOV’NOR
I PAID €7.40 for a small measure of Jameson in a suburban Dublin pub last weekend.
It was cold and miserable out, so the whiskey was the medicine needed. But I shan’t be buying whiskey in that boozer ever again.
It’s extortion to be charged €7.40 for a 35ml measure that’d be wolfed down in a couple of small gulps.
A bottle of whiskey is 700ml and costs €32.50 in Tesco (if you’ve a Clubcard, you’d get six quid off the price). Nice.
There are exactly 20 pub measures of whiskey in a standard 700ml bottle. Which means, if you bought the bottle in the supermarket each 35ml measure would cost you €1.62 a pop.
Not the €7.40 I stumped up for my meagre glass last Saturday afternoon.
It means that the pub is putting €148 into its till for every bottle of whiskey sold.
If you account for VAT (€26.50 per 700ml bottle) and excise duty (€11.92 per 700ml bottle) and add light and heat, staff wages, the mortgage on the premises, insurance costs (let’s say €20 per bottle) it takes €58.42 off the profits the pub is making on each bottle.
Which still leaves the boozer charging €7.40 a small glass better off to the tune of €91 for every bottle they sell. Madness.
OH, WHAT A TO-DOO
POOR old Bryan Adams. The Summer Of ’69 crooner had to cancel a recent concert in Australia because of a “large blockage of fat, grease and rags” in Perth’s sewage system that threatened to overflow the jacks in the venue he was due to play.
In a statement, the water authority said: “Contingencies, including the use of sucker trucks, were considered, but the volume of waste water generated by a capacity crowd of 16,000 people at the arena was considered too great. We can certainly understand people’s disappointment.”
Adams currently on his aptly named Roll With the Punches world tour, won’t have time to return to Perth to play for his Aussie fans, who’ve received a full refund.
Just think, if he had played, and the place had been hit by a wall of poo, he could’ve sung: “Everything I doo-doo I doo-doo it for you.”
GAME ON
THE League of Ireland kicks off tonight. And this year the competition for top spot looks set to be livelier than ever.
Shels, the reigning champs, under Damien Duff, open their title challenge with a visit to Tolka Park by Derry City.
Bohs, who signed one-time €10million Premier League striker Lys Mousset look stronger than in recent seasons.
Shamrock Rovers, once perennial favourites to win the league, will be a stern challenge for every team, as their run in this years Europa Conference League attests.
They’ll be hungry to reclaim glory, and face Bohs in the Aviva on Sunday afternoon in their opener.
Outside of that, St Pat’s, under the stewardship of former Ireland manager Stephen Kenny, had a strong finish to last season but couldn’t catch Shels.
It should be the most fascinating season.
POP QUEEN
YOU have to feel for Samantha Mumba. The pop queen lost out on representing Ireland to a song about a dog who gets lost in space, but never dies.
Bless their trembling hearts. Fluffy gibberish more suited to a four-year-old.
Mumba was none too happy with three of the four judges, who she said were “vile” and “rude” to contestants.
She didn’t include Bambie Thug in her put down.
Didn’t watch the show, just caught the final reckoning, which saw Sam pipped.
What a god-awful feast upon mush it was.