Bertie Ahern’s salary became 12 percent greater than that of the President of the United States

[barryqwalsh]

HOW IRELAND BLEW THE BOOM


As the quality of the health service deteriorated the number employed more than doubled; from 65,000 to 112,000[9]. Money was thrown at mismanagement problems and the health budge grew from €8.5 billion in 2002 to €15.5 billion in 2009. Health worker pay became 31 percent greater than that in Britain[10].

Expenditure and employment in education grew similarly. Irish teacher’s pay became 37 percent greater than British.[11] Pay awards rippled upwards and Bertie Ahern’s salary became 12 percent greater than that of the President of the United States.[12]

Members of the Troika would not have pondered for long after their arrival in Dublin on 28 November 2010[13] before realising that public sector pay was seriously out of line with EU norms and harsh cuts had to be made. As a result, the Government was forced to make various creative inroads and public sector take-home pay was significantly eroded.

- See more at: Public Pay and Health: daunting challenges for government - Ed Walsh

 

[CowboyTed]

HOW IRELAND BLEW THE BOOM


As the quality of the health service deteriorated the number employed more than doubled; from 65,000 to 112,000[9]. Money was thrown at mismanagement problems and the health budge grew from €8.5 billion in 2002 to €15.5 billion in 2009. Health worker pay became 31 percent greater than that in Britain[10].

Expenditure and employment in education grew similarly. Irish teacher’s pay became 37 percent greater than British.[11] Pay awards rippled upwards and Bertie Ahern’s salary became 12 percent greater than that of the President of the United States.[12]

Members of the Troika would not have pondered for long after their arrival in Dublin on 28 November 2010[13] before realising that public sector pay was seriously out of line with EU norms and harsh cuts had to be made. As a result, the Government was forced to make various creative inroads and public sector take-home pay was significantly eroded.

- See more at: Public Pay and Health: daunting challenges for government - Ed Walsh

Ed,

Th Health had to be improved, it was terrible through decades of lack of investment. Some gains were made but it was not cost effective... I worked along side this during the time and the reasons I believe there wasn't gains was:
1. Overuse of private contractors - They failed to develop the health service and went for the farm it out method.
2. No IT infrastructure - One of the benefits of coming late to the table is you are meant to leverage better tech. Ireland failed to set patient system. Thus unable to measure, unable to manage.
3. If they had got the IT bit right the first thing it would have told them is that they were over invested in acute care(Hospitals) and not enough in Primary(GP and Public Nurse)... Primary care today doesn't cover 24hrs a day in most of the country.

As for Education:
We are still one of the most cost effective education systems in the world... If you crap teachers pay crap money...

Ireland didn't go bust because of the public wage bill, we did because banks gave too much money for property speculation. The public wage bill had to be renegotiated and was done in various deals. The public sector got paid at the time the going market going rates for there jobs (actually the were slightly lower) and were renegotiated later (to slightly higher rate).

 

[barryqwalsh]

Increasing the health budget is not the solution. Indeed, studies have shown that if we correct for Ireland’s young-age profile total health expenditure per person is the highest in the EU and almost as great as in the US[21]. Indeed were the Irish health system managed as effectively as the Swiss or Australian the health budget could be cut by well over €1 billion and quality would be transformed[22].


Public Pay and Health: daunting challenges for government - Ed Walsh

 

[barryqwalsh]

Sweden sorted out its inefficient public health system by going out to tender and bringing in the private sector to run its public hospitals and much of its primary care system[24]. The trolley situation in Ireland will only be solved by diverting significant resources to primary care and step-down nursing, so that only seriously sick people are permitted to take up space in expensive acute hospitals. A & E is not the place for drunks or those with minor problems; these should be sorted in a network of local 24-hour primary care centres. The solutions are blatantly obvious: the courage to implement has been blatantly lacking.


Public Pay and Health: daunting challenges for government - Ed Walsh