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Brendan Howlin hopes unions will adopt the Haddington Road agreement, to cut public pay by €1 billion by 2015. Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland

Here's what's contained in the new 'Haddington Road' public pay deal

‘Croke Park’ is dead, long live ‘Haddington Road’.

THE FULL TEXT of the revised public sector pay deal has been published this afternoon.

The ‘Haddington Road Agreement’ – the proposed successor to the Croke Park Deal – includes a series of appendices to govern pay for individual sectors, including prison workers, teachers, health workers, Gardaí and the Defence Forces.

The terms of the agreement are to reduce the public pay bill by €1 billion by 2015, though it does not include any specific guarantee that the pay bill for 2013 will be reduced by €300 million as the government had wished.

The full agreement can be read here, but here’s a quick guide to what’s in the proposals:

  • As well as the adjustment of pay for Ireland’s 292,000 public workers, the proposals seek further flexibility from workers on redeployment, performance management, work-sharing arrangements and workforce restructuring;
  • The original proposals to extend the working week to a minimum of 37 hours (and to 39 hours, for those who already work over 35) remain in place, though individual sectors have been granted concessions as to when the extended hours will be introduced;
  • Increment freezes will also remain, though at a slightly lesser scale than in the original ‘Croke Park 2′ deal: those under €35,000 will have a three-month freeze, those over €35,000 and under €65,000 will have two three-month freezes, and those above €65,000 will have two six-month freezes;
  • Twilight payments are being scrapped;
  • Sunday premia will be retained, though management will now try to reduce the overall number of staff rostered on Sundays; hospital workers will be asked to make an extra effort to concentrate care provision from Monday to Saturday;
  • Overtime will be paid at time-and-a-half for workers under €35,000 and time-and-a-quarter for those over €35,000; those already working over 39 hours a week will be asked to work one hour a week, unpaid, until the end of next March;
  • Pay cuts for workers above €65,000 will remain as proposed in the original deal – sliding from 5.5 per cent to 10 per cent for those over €185,000. These will be temporary, however, with half of the cuts reversed in March 2017 and the remainder in January 2018.
  • The pensions for former public workers will be cut in line with those of current workers – so those earning over €32,500 will face a reduction.
  • Staff in the defence forces will lose some allowances, such as the Border Duty Allowance.
  • Gardaí will work three extra days a year for the next three years – split into one day of overtime, one extra 10-hour day, and ten extra hours at other times of the year. Voluntary overtime will go from 1.5x the usual rate to 1.25x that rate. Garda organisation, deployment and overall pay will be reviewed.
  • In the civil and public service, flexitime arrangements will be ‘red circled’ – existing staff with flexitime arrangements will be allowed to keep them, but they won’t be available to new staff above Assistant Principal Officer grade;
  • Teachers will lose their supervision allowance – worth €1,592 a year – but will have the equivalent amount added to their pay by 2018, with €796 added their pay in 2016-17, and a further €796 every year from 2017-18 onwards. Salaries for newly-qualified teachers who joined the profession in the last two years will also be nudged upwards;
  • In the health sector, newly-appointed consultants will not be faced with the pay cuts that are being applied to other workers over €65,000, in recognition of the particular cuts they have already faced in proportion to their peers. The working time directive, limiting the working week of junior doctors to a maximum of 48 hours, will be implemented by the end of 2014. Some tasks usually performed by junior doctors may be transferred to nurses.

Read: INTO says teachers should vote Yes to revised pay deal

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59 Comments
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    Mute Larry K
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    Jul 29th 2015, 2:31 PM

    there are a lot of people out there willing to help. just don’t be afraid or embarrassed to ask.

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    Mute Toddimus Maximus
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    Jul 29th 2015, 3:07 PM

    Best thing you can do is talk. It will be hard but by god does it get easier

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    Mute Michael Sands
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    Jul 29th 2015, 5:16 PM

    Or write it down to try to make sense out of it but talking works…

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    Mute Arthur Pewty
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    Jul 29th 2015, 2:53 PM

    Some good news for men for a change. Would do no harm to add the text number in the list of help numbers instead of being stuck in the article. Fair play to Console. At least some group seems to be concerned about men.

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    Mute casey
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    Jul 29th 2015, 3:07 PM

    There need’s to be a place to go like for DVAM. So glad that the fellas are using it and for talking. Huge step. Proud of you all.

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    Mute Michael Sands
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    Jul 29th 2015, 5:13 PM

    I think that is due to stress, how people treat each other, how relationships are suppose to develop according to what people are told, the westernisation of how a man should be a certain way to act to show that he is a man. That the only way to be a man is sex the whole time with strange women, aggression, fighting, treating others with contempt, being hard and nasty as well as ready to start a fight with anyone…
    This nonsense is coming from U.S. television telling men that they are not men unless they are total b….ds.
    People are too busy chasing images of what they should be from pop culture, TV and the media and it has become a race to be popular by doing what others tell them in order to be popular. In order to be part of a consumerised society and at its core is bullying and greed.

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    Mute Rossa Crowe
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    Jul 29th 2015, 7:01 PM

    @ Michael Sands. So what way should a man be then?

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    Mute Michael Sands
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    Jul 29th 2015, 8:38 PM

    Rossa, Be himself and not try to be like others, some say to find what you do not like in your life to get an idea to find out what you do like or want in your life then.

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    Mute Michael Sands
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    Jul 29th 2015, 8:49 PM

    Too many are told what will make them happy rather than trying to find this out for themselves. I think what makes people happy is finding their life’s purpose as people are social, they need to be amongst people and not being on FB etc but with people. Secondly, to feel that they have done something meaningful with their time as in work, hobbies etc instead of playing games or watching TV, THAT THERE IS SOMETHING TO SHOW FOR THE TIME THEY USED.
    I think if it is gardening, hunting like fishing etc or being creative as in making things that this will make people happier. I think being busy and creative is the best medicine as it gets people from being focused on themselves and their problems and focused onto something different.
    To be a man is to be masculine and to be enjoying who you are and what you can do and not to be led about like a dog on a leash by anyone or anything. So what do you think a man should be Rossa?

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    Mute Rossa Crowe
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    Jul 29th 2015, 9:11 PM

    @ Michael. Unfortunately I am so un- pc in my thinking that I couldn’t possibly share my views on a public forum with my name attached. Primarily we are fathers, brothers and providers and for those of us gifted with natural ability or even inherited fortune we should expect more.

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    Mute Michael Sands
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    Jul 31st 2015, 6:24 PM

    The key to life is to do onto others as you would like done onto you, that is a good start I suppose?

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    Mute Michael Sands
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    Jul 29th 2015, 5:52 PM

    In the case of bullying talking about it can make it worse as bullies who get caught bullying try to control what was said about them by denying it and putting all the blame on their victim from being stupid, evil, an object of fun to being a bully themselves and accusing that person of doing the things the bullies did themselves in order to pass the blame. So you have to be careful who you tell as some bullies are sociopaths and they have friends…
    They try to make light out of bullying and control the damage sometimes in order to keep on bullying. The motivation of bullies is control over their victim and their environment, if they can’t effect their victim then they try to control what others think of their victim because control over another person is control for them. If they can’t control their victim then they can control people around that victim, so they use others to satisfy their need for control but that is what sociopaths do. So many who are in such despair are victims of others or circumstances beyond them and that means they feel they have lost control and have become so focused in on their problems that in fact then they are their worst enemy then because they do not see the wider fuller picture as in those who love them, respect them or who like them. They forget or can’t see the options in front of them and they get into dark ways of thinking and feeling because they can’t step back and that is what bullies do to. Bullies are not happy unless they lower someone’s self esteem lower than their own as they live in slurry and try to grab people and drown them in the same slurry that they live in and their victims can’t see then that what others do and think says more about those saying or doing these things than it does about the victim as what people say and do is who and what they are and has nothing to do with facts or the truth but control and bitterness.
    I think bullying in society is getting worse and it has to do with people who are angry, envious, wanting to be accepted by a group, who do not want to be bullied themselves so they join in on bullying. a way to proves ones own masculinity to others in order to feel that their manhood isn’t the size of a peanut and transferring anger in one part of their lives into another part by bullying.
    I think the best way to defeat suicide is to let people know that they are loved and that their problems are bigger in their head than they are in reality as they can do and be whoever they want as problems are always temporary and it is better to live life and leave the bullies or problem when they live and that is normally in the cesspool that is who they are.

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    Mute Aine Nibhern
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    Jul 29th 2015, 9:09 PM

    Good that people are reaching out but hoping they get the right support and information when they do.

    Time that doctors and pharma companies stop lying to the public and misinformation people. The “chemical imbalance” theory is a myth. People get depressed for various reasons.

    The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth by Harvard Professor Irving Kirsch ~
    http://www.amazon.com/The-Emperors-New-Drugs-Antidepressant/dp/0465022006

    Psychiatrist Dr Joanna Moncrieff – The Myth of the Chemical Cure: The Politics of Psychiatric Drug Treatment

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IV1S5zw096U

    { Do not stop or change prescribed psychoactive drugs without talking to a good doctor, due to the dangers of withdrawal }

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    Mute Aine Nibhern
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    Jul 29th 2015, 9:13 PM

    Something that helps is ASIST training (Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training) ~

    http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/4/Mental_Health_Services/NOSP/Training/

    http://www.yourmentalhealth.ie/Get-involved/News-events/Events/ ( Under select Period put the next 6 months )

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    Mute Aine Nibhern
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    Jul 29th 2015, 9:20 PM

    We deserve informed consent about these mind altering drugs. According to medical journalist Robert Whitaker, in his book “Anatomy of an Epidemic”, anti-depressants can turn mild/moderate depression into a chronic, long term condition.

    My experience on these drugs, which I unwittingly took for anxiety ~

    http://www.independent.ie/life/health-wellbeing/mental-health/aines-story-i-was-unaware-of-potential-adverse-effects-to-my-prescribed-antidepressants-31218347.html

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