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SENIOR CIVIL SERVANTS have called on Sligo-Leitrim TD Marc MacSharry to withdraw comments he made accusing some public servants of laziness and using the Covid-19 crisis as an excuse to “lie on the couch and watch box sets”.
In a statement, the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants has called on MacSharry to withdraw “the ill-informed and ill-considered comments he made about public servants in the Dáil this week, and to apologise for the hurt and offence he has caused”.
The group said it had been contacted in large numbers by members who wished to complain about the remarks.
“They are, quite properly, offended and hurt at his blatant disregard, for what has been a national collective effort to navigate through the worst pandemic in living memory, led in no small way by our civil and public service,” said the statement.
It is not only civil servants, but MacSharry’s party colleague, senator Malcolm Byrne has also called on the comments to be withdrawn.
“I believe Marc MacSharry should withdraw his remarks. There are many public servants whom I know who have worked exceptionally hard and been particularly innovative over the period of lockdown. I think his comments are ill informed. His views are not shared among my Fianna Fáil colleagues.”
Earlier this morning, MacSharry acknowledged his comments will not be popular, but he stands over his words.
The controversy began with a debate this week on the Social Protection Bill where MacSharry spoke about some civil servants who he said: “frankly, Covid-19 has been great cover for doing nothing”.
He described his dealings with one State agency which will not have people back in that office until the end of August.
“Most people have been allowed to return to work, particularly in the private sector,” he said, stating that if people are working from home, they should be able to continue their work online and on the phone.
“Many elements of our State agencies, Departments and local authorities, however, are using this situation as cover to lie on the couch and watch box sets, returning an odd call here and there and doing the maximum of the minimum to tick over during this period. Productivity has fallen and that is unacceptable,” he said.
“Whether it is opportunism, coming from the labour relations side, laziness and-or poor management, it needs to be addressed because the country needs all its officials working at full tilt to get productivity levels up to the maximum so we get through this crisis in the best possible way,” he added.
‘Evocative’
Today, MacSharry defended his comments on RTÉ’s Today Show with Sarah McInerney, stating that the remarks were “evocative” and a “figure of speech” used to illustrate the point he was making.
“I’m afraid it gives me no pleasure to do it, but I must stand over the comments,” he said.
During his 13 minute speech, he said he commended the civil service workers who have been hard at work throughout the pandemic crisis, adding that he was praising the staff in social welfare for the extraordinary work that they’ve been doing.
However, he said a number of people have contacted him over the last number of months concerned about the matter.
“And inevitably such comments would bring the anger of many of the hard-working people who are in spare bedrooms or kitchen tables over the last period of time but it doesn’t take from my view, in terms of this point needing to be made. And I think that the public at large, cannot be expected to accept mediocrity dressed up as efficiency on a consistent basis.
“Of course, such comments aren’t popular, but it needs to be said. And that’s something that nationally we need to address,” he said, though he acknowledged that some people are annoyed with him about his remarks.
He clarified that the comments did not apply to those that are working hard in the public sector.
“This isn’t about getting votes. Will this lose me votes? Absolutely, it will. But if politics was just about populism… I would have joined Sinn Féin or become an Independent years ago,” he said.
The AHCPS said in its statement public servants go about their work in a dutiful and conscientious way “and they are not expecting plaudits but equally they deserve respect and informed comment”.
“Interventions like those made by Deputy Marc MacSharry in the Dáil this week are more akin to the populists politics we have seen on the rise in other countries – they should be withdrawn,” concludes the statement.
Sinn Féin housing spokesman Eoin Ó Broin confirmed he has written to Micheál Martin about the comments, which he said were “wrong, offensive and divisive”.
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Man who did nothing for a few months during government formation, back in the Dáil a month, and now on Dáil summer holidays has some neck to criticise others for doing nothing.
@LangerDan: despicable chancer. Pat Rabbitte had this guy figured years ago when he said that talent often skips a generation.
@LangerDan: couldnt make it up
@Frank Cauldhame: The sins of the father visited on the son, is that fair?
@JFG: That’s dynastic politics for you !
@JFG: If you really want to pull on heartstrings think about the six homeless people who died in Dublin this week. Then think about Mickey Martin’s well publicised attack on Fine Gael just prior to the election when he accused them of not delivering on the key issues of health and homelessness and said it was time for FG to go because the public were sick and tired of their Jekyll & Hyde behaviour. What did Mickey then did after the election was go into bed with Leo et all to form this totally unwanted and useless coalition we are now stuck with and one of his first actions was to prioritise pay increases for his buddies proving once and for all that FFG are nothing but a shower of cynical self serving parasites. Only four weeks in and they have shown their true colours.
@LangerDan: bit like SF then. No effort in government formation
@Rory: there was effort but the other two refused to come to the table. In fact they refused to work with each other too so how can you trust a word they say?
@Michael Garvey: Pat the Rabbit was a great man for raising Hares himself in his time, but did very little work, a typical smoke salmon socialist. Remember the Beef Industry Tribunal was his baby which cost millions with no outcome.
Are all these people tone deaf and shambolic ? About to embark on 6 weeks holidays , shambles of the last month and this blaming the public for everything is reaching epic and distasteful proportions .
@Isabel Oliveira: no. He’s calling out certain members of the public service who are doing the maximum of the minimum during a crisis. It’s a management issue like he says.
@Isabel Oliveira: It has the stench of a ruling class complex. He believes he’s above the standards and criticisms set for others.
@Chewey Bacca: which departments then? He needs to give examples because there are also many departments that are overworked during this crisis.. cheap shot
@Chewey Bacca: he’s using soundbites that please a certain cohort . If that’s the case then I’m sure internal procedures will be in place to deal with it and general comments like this from a TD in the government party are out of order for all reasons possible .
@Chewey Bacca: which would include himself.
@Chewey Bacca: and its not just during Covid. Theres a lot of dead wood out there!
@johnny_hezbollah: spot on. He’s all mouth and no detail.
He has the audacity to pull this stunt and say that productivity has fallen… Where’s your stats Deputy? You’re talking through your behind.
@johnny_hezbollah: exactly. Many worked evenings and weekends during Covid for no extra pay. I know countless.
@Chewey Bacca: All departments and private sector companies are experiencing weird imbalances of labour at the moment. This is yet another case of the ruling classes trying to turn worker against worker.
@Chewey Bacca: Some workers are having to balance parenting on top of working full time due to schools being off and nowhere available to mind children, a drop in productivity was bound to happen.
If the civil service he is talking about has performance reviews, then any gripes can be brought up there, not by someone who has only been in government 5 minutes and is off on holidays for 6 weeks while the country is still in crisis
@johnny_hezbollah: and there are just as many that are feeling no effects financially , are doing exactly as he says -minimum box ticking and on full pay ‘working’ from home – i have had to deal with 4 different sectors of the public sector in recent weeks and it’s been farcical – so much bureaucracy – it is an ideal time to reform so many of these paper pushing inefficient parts of the system with technology to drive efficiency – interesting how many people here immediately want to shoot the messenger and sling mud at him – when he is making public something that costs us all millions in high taxes because we run the state so inefficiently.
@Chewey Bacca: What would MacSharry know about this.
Name and shame the agency you had a bad experience with Mark, instead of tarring everyone with the same brush. I know of colleagues in my department double jobbing from home, whilst minding kids and doing schoolwork etc. Myself, we were initially doing 10 hour days in the first months of the lockdown
@Rob: Wife was the same, crazy hours, sometimes coming home crying due to the workload and being burnt out. I would honestly give him a slap if I meet him.
@Rob: you must be one of the few.virtually no government agency has answered phone calls since lockdown
@james foley: We have access to our telephone extensions through our laptops, when we log in to the application we’re available for calls. We’re also visible in this way to other staff and managers so no hiding or dossing. I’m in a department though not an agency
@james foley: nonsense
@Rob: I also cannot get through to Citizens Information and no voice message is added – call just disconnects.
@Redinism: Those offices are obviously closed, and I don’t know what working from home capability they have. Send an email?
@james foley: all Phones are forwarded to mobiles as far as i am aware.
Was he away from the desk when all government offices were shut and lower paid civil servants had to beg ,borrow and steal equipment to facilitate work. We don’t all get 51,000€ worth of expenses like he does.
Maybe he was also away the day the schools shut and people had childcare issues.
Hard to know if there is a functioning brain in any Fianna Fáiler these days.
What’s he planning to do with his 6 week holiday.
This guy’s Dad is Ray McSharry – dynastic politics is a real problem in Ireland.
@Cookie: This Geezer is a heredity Politician that in the Healy-Rea Category
@Roger Dawson: Bit of a coincidence he praises the Dept of Social Protection staff, as they have large offices in Sligo.
The staff in Sligo are the most helpful you will get in the public service.
@Cookie: He was on the radio earlier that he will be working from his office in Sligo I think and hopes to get away with the family for 2 weeks.
Said the man about to take 6 weeks holidays! Hey Mark, pipe down.
@Sid: How do you know he’s taking 6 weeks holidays? The Dail might be off for. 6 weeks but their work still goes on. But you’d know that if you wanted to.
A TD accusing others of doing nothing during lockdown……oh the irony, maybe mcstupid can give us the taxpayer public a detailed account of everything he did during lockdown to warrant his full pay when most didn’t have that, along with all his mates in the dail
Yeah they are called TDs
Although there may be people like he says, there are also many who homeschooled and worked at the same time. Increase your own productivity by foregoing your holiday. It’s not popular, it is populist. There are many who did nothing during a hung Dail, but many worked tirelessly- I’m sure he’d be the first to cry foul if we generalised about TDs.
I think he has a great point to make and has made it well. We all know that there are people working extremely hard from home – but there are also those who are getting away with doing very little. He is calling them out. He has obviously been contacted by constituents and probably others from within the government whose experience with some departments has been less than ideal during the last few months. He is brave to say it. This WILL cost votes. I wish people would stop constantly banging on about overpaid politicians. It’s an over criticised thankless job for the most part requiring that you give up so much of your time to assist others.
@Sven Gilmore: you can’t generalise like that.
Some people couldn’t work from home.
It requires internet which Fine Fáil failed to provide in all the years in government.
You need equipment, we don’t all have laptops and you need help with childcare because very small children believe or not have to be cared for..
The vast majority had to work harder to compensate for that. But we thought we were all in this together.
This divide and conquer has to stop. He needs to specify where exactly the issue was and what department it was and actually help to bring about change. He is now in government after all.. like you would think he has no act or part to play in productivity.
@Sven Gilmore: it is actually a great example of not making a good point. No proof or stats to back up what he said while insulting people who are worker hard. On top of that it is a very common misconception of how ALL civil servants work ALL the time. I have spent about 10 years working beside civil servants and there is very little difference to private companies when it comes to work ethics and commitment. Biggest factor is the age of a company and size. Large old organisations are inefficient and have additional staff to requirements due to poor output. Certain section in certain government departments are definitely bad but not the entire civil service
@Sven Gilmore: With their salaries , vouched and unvouched expences certainly wouldn’t call it thankless. His Father Ray certainly did not concider it thankless… Would put him on par with Ahern..
@Sven Gilmore: If he had a great point to make he would not have made such a blanket generalised comment. He also wouldn’t have had to resort to the usual anti-SF rhetoric in a vain attempt to strengthen a very weak point. He is simply doing the government’s bidding by stoking the fires of the so-called public sector v private sector debate in advance of upcoming budgets and austerity measures. Divide and conquer by deflecting attention away from the shambles that has been this government so far. He’s also trying to deflect from the really poor showing in polls for FF since they agreed to team up with FG. Resorting to trying to attack SF, like his party leader did in disgraceful fashion in the convention centre yesterday, thinking that this will win back the voters who have deserted the party in recent years.
Worker do what they’re told to do. This is poor management obviously. A few departments overworked during pandemic, others can do nothing.
I thought pay deal meant flexibility to help each other out in the public service.
@l: Just because he said it it doesn’t make it true.
@l: no you can’t blame management for everything. The individual not working is first and foremost the person not working. I have seen management mistakes in a lot of work places as a contractor which allowed people to hide but you blame the person hiding. Unions also play a part in not allowing some work to be questioned or observed too. Yes management dishing out half the normal work load and saying come back when you are done is bad management if you don’t notice throughput dropped 50% and didn’t notice nobody coming back for more work.
He’s laying the foundation for paycuts and blocking pay restoration. They did the exact same thing in 2008, stirred things up to scapegoat “public sector” to draw attention away from the real problems.
I’m in the private sector, and I chose that path because frankly, public sector work pays peanuts. Don’t fall for this boIIox, there’s a lot of public sector workers, some are lazy like in any office but most are working as hard as they can, caught in the same rat trap as the rest of us.
@David Bourke: exactly, divide and conquer
@David Bourke:
Peanuts huh? for example…..April 2020… The numbers of staff earning over €100,000 at the Central Bank last year increased by 22%, to 256. (yes 256 people).
In response to a Freedom of Information request, the Central Bank has confirmed that, last year, one staff member earned between €250,000 and €300,000 with three earning between €200,000 and €250,000.
Repeat this in RTE, ESB, Gov offices etc, etc.
@David Bourke: pays peanuts, are you mad… look at the whole package and associated level of responsibility the public service has it easy. I am not saying they are waters or such, but they have a HUGE pension once they retire and according to latest studies they ear 20% more than the private sector. and they cant be fired, or at least they very rarely are.
@SteveBuzzard: That’s great, Steve. Just one little problem though: none of those people are civil servants.
@Dublin Pedaller:
They are actually, they work in the State sector. Maybe you can prove me wrong?. thanks
Populism is the new name given to democracy.
@Niamh O’Galvin: it’s becoming both unbearable and alarming .
To be fair to him, there is some truth in this, although it’s not a general thing. County council run tourism sites are shuttered in some places while others have worked around the problem.
Sometimes, when you’re getting paid anyway, human nature takes over.
@John Mulligan: it’s a pandemic John. It won’t have all gone smoothly.
How about Ministers falling asleep during a vote concerning the protection of lower paid workers. Perhaps McSharry should start closer to home.
I’m currently sitting in front of my laptop in my kitchen while my child is sat in front of the TV. Single mother and full time civil servant. But sure we’re all lazy us civil servants…….
@Nicola Monaghan: he’s talking about a small minority of wasters in the civil service. I’m sure there’s a few at least in your department like there is in each and every department.
@Trebor78: absolutely. The issue is the majority of the public think we’re all the same. I spent 15 years in the private sector before joining the public sector and its not the handy number everyone seems to think it is. There’s lazy people I’m both sectors but we all get tarred with the one brush
@Trebor78:
You know they have managers like anywhere else right? If they do nothing they can get fired just like in the private sector.
Do you think people would just shrug and say “whatever” if they saw their coworkers doing nothing while they picked up the slack? This myth that public sector workers are all lazy is a tactic Fianna Fail use to get public support for pension cuts and blocking pay increases.
I say that as a private sector worker.
Wake up, FF are playing the public like a fiddle. You think it’s a coincidence that FF are dragging up the “public sector is lazy” issue while under attack for the PUP holiday issue and the minister’s pay rises?
Ah look at all the civil servants taking offence.. Hold on a minute aren’t you all hard at work were do you get time to comment on article in journal!!!
@nelliekel: I take it you’re a hard-working private sector employee who wouldn’t possibly have the time to read and make comments on the journal. Person who makes comments on the calling people wasters for having time to comment on the journal – the irony
@Anne Marie Devlin: and God forbid we’d be allowed take a break!!
@nelliekel: There’s a thing called a tea break and then another thing called a lunch break… Genius.
@nelliekel: muppet and poor troll
It’s a bit rich when you have politicians saying civil servants are lazy when most politicians have never worked in a real job.
Living walking proof that ability can skip a generation.
He got his seat because of his father! What was he doing during lockdown???
He is also showing why he didn’t get a ministry….he tried to be populist, backfired.
He hasn’t a hope of becoming a minister now, can you imagine working for him, as a civil servant, in his department, knowing more than he does, writing him briefings and earning a fraction of what he earns knowing he has no regard or respect for the you
@Bleurgh: He got his seat because people voted for him.
@Sal Paradise: He wouldn’t have got on the ticket for the party in the first place if it wasn’t for his father.
@Sal Paradise: yes, because Of his fathers name not on the back of his own work!
@Bleurgh: But still thick ejits still had to vote for him. That’s the unfortunate reality!
I’ve been trying to get through to Dundalk Citizens Information since Monday. No one is answering phone calls nor no voice message set up. I went to check to the office if I have correct phone number and it is correct…. so maybe there is some sense in what’s being said
@Redinism: The office is closed and there is info on the website as to how you can contact them. Make a basic effort.
It must be hard for him to take that it’s possible that someone is doing even less than him and getting paid
It’s great to see Marc back. He went awfully quiet when promoted to front bench a few months back. Now he’s on the back he’s calling things out and rightfully so but I think he’s effectively two-faced as when he got promoted he said literally nothing. Maybe it’s sourness that makes him speak up or he was given a deal to stay quiet on the front benches.
I recommend the wire and G.O.T.
Call the midwife was very entertaining
I think Bruce swartzennegger and Annie Willis are making “covid the second wave” behind the mask but sure everyone likes different stuff that’s what Netflix is for…
Another FF who deserves the heave ho
Interesting deflection going on here.
the mob will buy it.
If there is a problem in a department well then have it dealt with
Passing general spurious comments about civil servants is disingenuous to all those hard working people who kept the show on the road while leaders couldn’t even form a government. Now formed, the government has shambolicly muddled through a months work and now having given themselves pay rises are exhausted and taking 6 weeks holidays to rest
at last someone saying it as it is.
@DeWitt: Shouldn’t your user name have half instead of De?
Sack those who dont want to go back to work.
Wasters the lot of them.
How dare he. Some of us are working around the clock. Where is his evidence.
@Sheila Kelly Reilly: “Some”…that is the key word.
And we’re going to be paying this c to sit on his f.. a… and watch box sets for the next six weeks!
Probably takes one to know one!!
Poor Marc. Not know for his intellectual promiscuity.
Bless his heart.
It’s very hard to be an unappreciated narcissist in Sligo!
Most people on here are reacting in the same way when someone slags their mate. They will be bashing civil servants or teachers not working with students during lockdown but as soon as someone else slags them off….
Says the hard working TD! In fairness he would know laziness!
Wonder were they watching box sets about ‘the inside story within EU Commission’ and what retired EU Commissioners get up to after they leave the EU Commission? Its a great documentary in the waiting!!!!
Likes the sound of his own voice
no one in the public sector lost their job. The whole clerical side of the dept of health let down the front line nurse’s so badly it was disgraceful. Millions squandered in sub standard PPE. And they couldn’t even get the statistics right. Remember the Mater Hospital said they would see them in court. Cervical check and breast check decide not to work but why them only and the rest of front line nurse’s face death and dying. Ridiculous infighting between HIQA HSE and dept of health all blaming each other over nursing home disaster. there is no performance measurement system in place In reality their technology is so backward they can’t work from home anyway. The front line nurse’s took the hit for a poorly managed Department Or have you forgotten our hospital trolly scandle.
He needs an Air B+B cottage in Kabul ~ The thick head !
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