Do you think Siptu's claim for a 3.5% pay increase for health staff is justified?

31% YES 69% NO

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Your Reaction

• Sure what's 20 billion lee if we look at things another way? Thru' the prism of history? Sure in three years time 20 billion might buy you a cup of coffee. Instant coffee. The ground stuff might be 30 billion. Who knows?
  Kwo vadis this 20 billion? It's only 20 billion by decree  Ireland
• See them taxis parked along O'Connell street? Well it's illegal to park or to proceed in a manner inconveniencing to other road users according to the Road Traffic Act. But the guards won't move them. My point about who has the most effective calibre and cyclic rate of fire. Right now it would appear that 150 taxis have the Tao. Heard the Garda Sergeants representative on wireless yesterday saying (in a personal capacity) that he supported certain current protests. Where there is no law there is no crime, and where there is no ENFORCEMENT of the law, there is 'no crime'.
  Kynos  Ireland
• Conor p11 wins second best laugh out loud quote of the week... ' We should set up our "real tax payers lobby" and have them fight for us against these cancerous Unions' so you are essentially advocating establishing a Union to fight against the evil that is the Union, nice one comrade.
  dermot  Ireland
• Conor, your'e right, you should fight back. Fight back against the bosses who lie to you, screw you, rip you off and then fool you into taking your frustrations out on other workers. Make a start now - JOIN your union.
  Richard  Bouvet Island
• Americans are grand people but the country is too new. It's like moving into a newly-built housing estate. Everything works well. As it should. And it is very impressive. But I miss the snipe, the pheasants in the unkempt grass, the midges, the rain, the whin bushes & the briar & nettle patches. One even begins to miss the s*****ists talking s***e - and looking for totally unrealistic wage increases.
  owen  United States Minor Outlying Islands
• No way is it justified...these people need to wake the hell up...Would like to see them striking across the road for a dole cue...!! then hopefully they would be told about reality
  Niall  Ireland
• I think it is so sweet that SIPTU members still believe that fairies live at the bottom of the garden and there really is gold at the end of the rainbow. Wake them up gently.
  Daniel  Ireland
• And of course the public sector (employees) pay taxes that are not notional. Stamp duty, VAT, excise, CGT, CAT, which we all may have to pay, regardless of public or private sector employments. And there's far far more I could look at. Every nurse or doctor or ambulance driver, paramedic, cop, fireman, member of the defence forces, air-sea rescue, state laboratory staff, whatever, who saves another life contributes positively to the wealth generation sector. Those who serve in administrations such as revenue, corporate affairs, and so forth, who make their functions as transparent and easy for the private sector to navigate as possible, and extract their tax or enforce their regulatory authority, with prudence justice and fairness, and at all times in accordance with the rules regardless of the foregoing, for bad rules can be changed, contributes also to what I loosely call "wealth generation" which is the conversion of the gifts of Mother Nature to higher and higher forms of matter and energy, at least in terms of their utility to us as a species. All of these taxes have collapsed. As has corporate income tax or has it? But a deal is a deal you can't decide to welch on your credit card payments just because you've no money. You can however negotiate with the card issuer to see if interest can be frozen and reduced payments agreed for a period, as prolonged as necessary until a recover occurs in one's finances. Exact same principles at work here methinks. It depends on whether there's more money perceived to be in preserving the wa, or disrupting it.
  Kynos  Ireland
• It's obviously strategic - put in a claim for a 3.5% pay increase in the hope that this will discourage government from applying the proposed 5% pay-cut. Stupid strategy though, since it's antagonising private sector workers. This, along with planned cancellation of parent-teacher meetings by teacher unions, is driving a wedge between public and private workers at a time when unity and genuine partnership is required. I am not in a union (was in SIPTU some years ago and left in despair), and would certainly not dedicate any more of my dwindling Fat Cat Bloated Public Sector Pay Pack to joining one. My bet is that the govt plan only to apply a 3% pay-cut at Christmas. Trade unions are just joining in the charade: they'll give us our day out in November so that when the the 3% cut comes we'll all feel grateful because it's not 5%.
  patrick l  Ireland
• Ah dermot - p11 - there you are, good man... Glad to see I'm still amusing you ;-) Plus I'd like to congratulate you for doing more for those of us on the anti public sector greed fest side than I could ever do. Keep up the good work there dermot. In fact the more you post the better... and don't forget to keep on laughing and telling us all about it too ;-)
  Ciuans  Other