EUROPEAN PUBLIC SERVICE union leaders, meeting in Dublin, have said that the problems Ireland is suffering with recruitment and poor morale in State bodies is a Europe-wide problem created by individual governments’ efforts to reduce costs.

The comments from the leadership of the European Federation of Public Services Employees (EUROFEDOP) were made as they met in Dublin for their annual seminar. 

EUROFEDOP represents workers in the security, military and health service across the continent.

The theme of the conference was around the topic of building resilience for public service employees in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

As previously reported by The Journal, both the Defence Forces and gardaí as well as the HSE and education sector are all experiencing staffing crises. 

The issue of retention and staffing levels has caused protests in other EU countries.

Bert Van Caelenberg from Belgium, the Secretary General of the group, told The Journal that retention and recruitement problems is a “European issue” and arose out of the aftermath of the pandemic.

“During the coronavirus time, everyone said that we need the public service – but now they are saying the crisis is over and they have returned to calls for privatisation of public services and reducing costs,” he pointed out. 

“It is the same across all countries in Europe, where they have said that the State needs the public service but it costs too much money and that is the problem with the conditions and the pay.”

He said he feared that government decisions are being made now that are going to cause problems ahead when the sector faces its next crisis. 

Norbert Schnedl, of the Austrian Public Service union, said that the issue of retention has been caused by decisions by Government, but also by the inability of States to compete with more attractive prospects in the private sector. 

“These problems exist in the whole of Europe – in Austria we have problems to find new colleagues because of salary [for example].

“There is a need to increase salaries and to improve working conditions in the state organisations to compete. There needs to be hard work to find solutions with the different governments in all countries in Europe to [improve the situation], and that is what we will discuss here in Dublin,” he added. 

The Irish representative bodies and unions present included the public service union Forsa, PDFORRA which represents enlisted personnel, and the Prison Officers Association.

Learning opportunity

Mark Keane, President of PDFORRA, was instrumental in bringing the event to Dublin. 

Keane said that the conference would be a key learning opportunity for his representative group in discussions with union leaders. 

“It’s the first time in many years that we’ve held this conference outside mainland Europe, so it’s a great privilege and honour to bring it to Dublin. It’s basically to deal with the problems that public services are facing not just in this country, but across Europe.

“The theme of the conference is building resilience, especially after Covid. We’ve seen the huge role of public servants in that crisis. We have difficulties, very many difficulties and ironically, the same difficulties we face here, recruitment, retention, renumeration, is a whole of Europe problem.”

Keane underscored that the event allows public servants here to highlight their concerns, and also to learn from the experiences of others across Europe – with the hope this would show how their solutions could be applied here in Ireland.

The three-day conference concluded today .