for lefties too stubborn to quit
Its late and this story is just breaking but if there was unrest with the leadership in Labour…. would this cause them to act?
Of course it may all be legitimate but it certainly doesn’t look good.
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The Cedar Lounge Revolution
whatever way the details emerge it will be a black mark against him from tomorrow onwards
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It’s just amazingly tone deaf, even if a family member is very well qualified for a top government job.
I note that the Independent had a piece talking about a possible backbench rebellion over the SF motion on Wednesday, with Ciara Conway named as one who might break ranks. It was all hedged with stuff about how strong a government counter motion will have to be.
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Morning Ireland just had a really aggravating interview with Fionnan Sheahan about this. Rather than discussing the actual issue, or anything politically significant like whether any government TDs would break ranks, he focused on accusing SF of opportunism and trying to boost their falling poll numbers by tabling the motion and said Gerry Adams should be afraid to open his mouth about women’s lives given his track record yada yada… ‘They should wait for the expert group’ … He failed to mention SF had supported Clare Daly’s bill in April and actually praised the debate back then for allowing the ‘middle ground’ to dominate, rather than the extremists!
I’m no fan of SF and it would have been correct to point out their opposition to abortion in the North, but it’s just so typical of the media in this country that they can’t even be expected to be reliably liberal. And that this guy is presented a some kind of neutral commentator despite being married to Averil Power of FF, who would spout exactly the same shit, word for word. Grrr
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That’s dismal. But predictable. It’s a case, isn’t it of they’ll say anything at all, doesn’t matter if it’s wrong, or inconsistent… (and I’m really haring this ‘moderate centre’ trope that commentators et al are presenting us with).
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I know! The whole point is that there is no middle ground on this issue, which is why it’s so terribly ‘divisive’ – as they also keep solemnly telling us…
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I thought the Marian Finucane show the other day where G. Casey was on was a particularly bad example of same. Marian, keen to shore up her voice of wisdom and moderations credentials made some half-hearted efforts in that line too… Urghhhh….
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Of course it is extreme to advocate for abortion legislation equivalent to practically every other country in Europe…
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It’s interesting that we’re consistently told that by not having a property tax we’re the out of step with Europe and, implicitly, we’re a laughing stock. Yet, when it comes to abortion there are few takers on the ‘we’re out of step with Europe’ line. Nobody in Europe gives a tuppence ha’penny about our property tax regime but many, I’m sure, are aghast at our disgraceful handling of abortion.
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As far as I know this is a non-story. It’s a redeployment after DL VEC ceases to be – same salary, same department.
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Will be interesting to see if the option was offered to others
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… although I could be wrong:
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It will be interesting to see how this plays out, when Gilmore and Quinn put their side of the story tomorrow.
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“job creation”
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Don’t really see the potential for this to do much damage tbh. She had to be redeployed under the terms of the CPA, and while the story has all the ingredients to drive the average Daily Mail reader wild, I’m not sure if I can see much that’s actually corrupt here……… could be wrong though
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There are many public servants who would like to have been re-deployed under the CPA in similar circumstances. And, indeed, many were redeployed……out the door and onto the street. The question is how many of her colleagues were redeployed to similar roles? Were there any people in comparable grades who were told that the only option was early retirement? There are many public servants of Ms.Hanney’s age who would have liked to stay on for a few more years, to finish their careers with dignity, but who were forced out at the start of this year by threats that if they did hang on they would suffer a financial penalty for doing so. Nice to see that the government retains some capacity for kindness, even if it’s restricted to family members.
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Hang on a sec, though. On the face of it, Hanney would be no different from anyone else in a comparable grade, and the same reduction in final pension would apply in the same way to her (if she didn’t retire in February) as it would to anyone else.
There’s much to criticise the Labour Party and Eamon Gilmore over. But in the absence of any other information, I don’t think being married to someone covered by the Croke Park Agreement is one of those things.
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Fair enough. I suppose my point is that under Croke Park ‘redeployment’, as opposed to having to take compulsory early retirement, becomes a political football or at least open to influence. Who does the senior manager chose to redeploy? The Minister’s wife or Mr/Ms. X? That may be unfair to Carol Hanney and Gilmore but I think it’s not ground-breaking to suggest in the Irish public sector that people who have personal connections to political figures, particularly government figures, are not going to find themselves at a huge disadvantage when there is pressure on to run down numbers in the public sector.
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I’m sorry, but I don’t see it. The point about the Croke Park Agreement, for better or worse, is that there aren’t compulsory early retirements or redundancies.
You could argue that the cuts to pensions (on foot of the cuts to salaries) effectively pushed people towards early retirement in February, but that’s completely separate to redeployment, but Hanney would have been in the same boat as everyone else in relation to this.
The fact is that she was in a job which was being abolished under public sector changes. Under the Agreement, she’s entitled to continue in employment, so a job (at an equivalent level/salary) has to be found for her somewhere. Without additional information on this particular situation, I’m not sure what the problem is or where she’s getting special treatment, unless you’re of the Bartley/Sindo view that people should be sacked rather than redeployed.
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Yes, this speaks more to the craziness inherent in the CPA.
It is beyond illogical to merge VECs in order to reduce the proliferation of well-paid CEO positions, only to have to invent make-work roles for the redeployed former CEOs.
There comes a point when a position really is redundant and there are no savings in simply re-labelling the former post holder while maintaining their very generous package.
Though of course the reason this story has legs at all is that Gilmore family has some previous form in terms of enjoying the largesse of the state to the fullest possible extent.
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The idea that this will bring down Gilmore is absurd. It may have the opposite effect. In addition I find it offensive that Carol can not be able to have her own career without ending up in newspapers. If anything happens to Eamon Gilmore’s leadership it should not be because of this…..
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In fairness, this is not a feminist or even a gender-specific issue.
No-one is suggesting Carol should have been at home all these years, ironing Eamonn\’s red flag.
Rather the issue is whether she should have got first dibs on a cushty berth in a Labour ministers department.
And whether it makes any sense at all to streamline the VEC system, if the staff freed up thusly are then assigned to make-work positions elsewhere.
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Seems Gilmore himself is now playing the gender card on this …
Mr Gilmore said it is disappointing some people seem to think that a woman should not have an independent career.
Again its not the gender, its the family connection. I mean if a bunch of lucrative state work happened to fall into his daughters lap, no-one would question it on the basis of her gender, right?
@smiffy
I’m not sure what the problem is or where she’s getting special treatment, unless you’re of the Bartley/Sindo view that people should be sacked rather than redeployed.
Well the Bartley view is that if you have to redeploy, then it only makes sense to do so to positions in which there is a clear & pre-existing vacancy, preferably where the most impact can be made in maintaining frontline services.
Not to a newly created desk-job. Otherwise the savings are nil.
I find it hard to believe that there isnt a VEC school or college in the Dublin area that couldnt have used her long years of teaching & school management experience.
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No doubt all redeployments within the public service should be benchmarked against the ‘whether Bartley finds it hard to believe or not’ test.
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frontline services
I love this mantra: as if education, health and social welfare services could be done entirely without administrators.
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I love this mantra: as if education, health and social welfare services could be done entirely without administrators.
Nobody is suggesting that such services can be delivered without some administrators.
The question is whether new senior administrative gigs should be dreamed up at a time when frontline services are understaffed.
Other than it being deemed below her station, I cant see any obvious blocker to her having been redeployed to a teaching or school management role.
Unless of course the CPA is nowt to do with maintaining frontline services and instead is all about keeping Carol Hanney et al in the style and status to which they\’re grown accustomed.
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“Other than it being deemed below her station, I cant see any obvious blocker to her having been redeployed to a teaching or school management role.”
Any one in particular?
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Now it emerges that SIPTU are fighting for Hanney to retain her €4,800 p.a. allowance as a Transport Liason Officer.
It really beggars belief that the VEC CEOs were in receipt of such an allowance in the first place. I mean, did they put in for the black or blue shoe allowance too?
And now even though the work has been taken over by Bus Eireann, and the erstwhile CEOs have been scattered to cushy roles without even the vaguest connection to transportation other than their own daily commute, their union still wants the guts of €5k to paid be over every year. Legitimate expectation dontcha know …
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If a plain, ordinary, (but single) female needs to speak to an engineer (usually male) at the local authority; a female administrator insists on sitting in on the meeting.
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