I’m not sure which is more bizarre, the fact that female soldiers get an annual allowance for underwear or that the allowance amounts to a paltry €27.40 per year.  The news came in a report in the Irish Independent this week which stated that a number of  public sector allowances are being scrutinised with a view to making cuts to save money.  The bizarre underwear allowance was just one of them.

It was reported that 377 members of the defence forces got the allowance, which was described as “night-time attire”  Strange that, in view of the fact that most women I know wear underwear during the day too.  Perhaps the hardy female soldiers go commando during the day?  For that matter, it’s not mentioned that the allowance was specifically for female soldiers, it just mentioned that 377 members of the defence forces received the allowance.  Were some male members claiming the allowance perhaps and indulging their feminine side?  I think we should be told!

Now the same report mentioned other allowances dished out that seem far more spurious and in need of the chop, for example the prison officers who get an additional €2659 annual allowance on top of their wages for supervising the prison tuck shop.  I ask you!  Were they doing it outside their working hours?  Hardly.  Or what about the 15 defence force chaplains who get an allowance for a housekeeper and ‘maidservants’ that cost a total of €22,000 last year.  Maidservants?  That one must hark back to De Valera’s time, the era of the comely maidens.

Then there’s the troops still getting extra pay – €96 a week – for border duty despite the Good Friday Agreement being in place for the past 13 years.  The bare-faced cheek when people are being asked to stump up  €100 for a household charge to get money back into the empty coffers.

So, in the grand scheme of things, a little knicker allowance isn’t much.  In fact it’d hardly cover a couple of dozen pairs of the basic cotton variety from Dunnes Stores, never mind anything more lingerie-ish.   We just have to hope those getting the allowance aren’t called to defend their country in any dangerous situation when undergarments of kevlar construction would be more appropriate to keep their nether regions safe, because the budget would never stretch to that.

by Grainne

Is there a bigger bane to jobhunters than  recruitment agencies/companies?  So many for a start, vying for business.  Some seem to do no more than replicate the jobs featured on other agencies jobsites and repost them.

My own experience with every single one of them has been frustrating and dissatisfying.  Because the bulk of their business is done online they get away with treating their customers (us) with distain and rudeness that wouldn’t be countenanced in any other business than I know of.  And, unfortunately the people they are treating so badly are people who could do with some professional, courteous service as they’re going through a hard time.  Trying to find a job in present day Ireland is the single most discouraging, dispiriting, demoralising, frustrating and futile task there is.  I pity anyone going through it.

All of the recruitment agencies list the jobs they have.  Some will you they have, say 24 in a particular sector.  They don’t.  They repeat ads in their listings.  And that’s just for a start.

If you are lucky enough to find a job that either matches your skills or appeals to you, don’t get excited.  By all means fill in the details as required, write the required covering letter and upload your CV but remember there’s  an almost 100% chance you’ll never hear one word from them ever again.  They have your letter, your CV but you matter not a whit to them.

Most people with an ounce of sense check out who’s handling that particular listing and ring them as a follow up.  They get additional details about the job.  This normally leads the applicant to believing that the person hiring will do so in the next week or so and when they might expect to be called for interview if their application is deemed worthy.

I’ve no idea what happens next.  It’s a grey area.  Who put the CVs received into the ‘could be a contender pile’ or the other one:‘don’t give a damn about these saps’.  Is it the person whose name appeared in relation to the listing on the website?  Or someone more senior who makes this all important decision to give someone an outside chance by getting an interview at the very least?  What criteria is used or is it all rather arbitrary?  ‘Like the sound of him/her on the left, don’t like the layout of theirs on the right.’

Many colleagues and friends have spoken to me about the frustration of not even receiving a chance to go for interview.

After that first, reasonably helpful phone call with the person whose name was listed as  having responsibility with the recruitment agency for that job, any further contact is quite brusque and devoid of any useful details.  They can no longer say when interviews might be held.  No, they cannot say if you’ll be chosen for interview.  After that they’ll be impossible to reach on the phone.  No longer available.  And the likelihood is that you’ll never hear from them again.

A nephew of mine was given the expectation that he was being accepted for a job in Norway.  Delighted, he began preparations, sorting out his affairs, including selling his car.  He made a couple more calls to the recruitment agency who began to get vague, then vaguer, on the start date.  In the end it never happened. The same thing happened to my son with jobs advertised in the UK but his at least began, albeit a couple of months later than they were supposed to.

When I was job hunting I was told by one young woman (they all seem to be young women) that I’d have to be available to start immediately.  I told her I would.  She went as far as to say my range of qualifications and experience for the position was excellent.  Would I be available to fly to London for interview at short notice?  I would, I told her.  She stressed that the person seeking to fill the position needed someone as soon as possible.  Weeks went by and I heard nothing.  Never did in fact.

A friend of mine, well qualified but looking for a job for well over a year and a half now, has given up on recruitment agencies, having lost all faith in their ability and disgusted by their rudeness and tardiness.

Recruitment agencies won’t tell you that you didn’t get they job.  They won’t engage with you at all.  There will be no further contact.  Worse still they sometimes leave jobs posted after they’ve been filled, meaning that people waste time and effort in applying for posts they have no chance of getting whatsoever.

The advice of my friend who, like myself has given up on them as a means of trying to secure a job advocates a direct approach to the company; submitting a CV and following it up with a phone call.

It’s no worse and certainly a lot less frustrating than dealing with recruitment companies.  They should all be bound by a code of conduct in which the bottom line is respect and proper treatment of the job seeker.

Bressie one of the 'Voice of Ireland' judges

by Grainne

Now in the grand scheme of things it’s not a huge issue but a minor, well actually more than minor irritation.   What’s irking me?  The format of RTE’s latest talent show ‘The Voice of Ireland’, that’s what.

The first part was ok, the initial selection of contenders to go forward.  In fact it was a good idea to have the panel of judges keep their backs to the performers so that their looks and appearance didn’t impinge on their consciousness and they were being judged solely on their singing ability.

Now that the judges have selected their entrants however the show has moved on to a nonsensical and ill-judged format for whittling down the numbers.  Who on earth dreamt up the notion that they should be paired?  Pitting individuals who entered as sole performers with fellow contestants?  It cannot work on any level and clearly isn’t.  So much so that it’s downright unfair to the contestants.  But then the feelings and sensibilities of contestants appears to be the least consideration of the makers who want only entertainment value to maximise audiences. 

Last week saw a couple of very disappointed contestants go home in tears.  It was little consolation for them to be lavished with praise for their performances by the judges but then, when it came down to it and a choice had to be made, they were the ones ousted, whereas they could well have qualified for the next stage if they’d been judged on their individual performance. 

There’s also the issue of song selection from the coaches.  Brian Kennedy’s choice of ‘Dirty Old Town’ is a case in point.  It’s one of those sing-along pub come-all-yas that requires no vocal talent and was a waste of the two he chose to perform it.  Their disappointment was evident.  They made a valiant effort, to be fair to them but it wasn’t a proper test of their singing voices.  I can understand the thinking behind giving contestants different songs to sing to test and stretch their abilities but not with that song like that. 

Who will win a singing talent competition run in such an unorthodox manner?  Not the best singer in any event.

I’ve been implementing some austerity measures of my own in recent months. Out of necessity. With cuts in pay on top of numerous stealth taxes, and more to come, and my outgoings not having diminished to match, something had to give.

In cutting back on my spending I had to ignore the urgings of Finance Minister Michael Noonan to spend to stimulate the economy. To be fair, over the years, I’ve done more than my bit for the country in this regard. Friends and family will attest to my penchant for shopping. Mind you, even if I had been able to splurge in recent months I wouldn’t be the least inclined; not while bankers and bond-holders are getting away with bloody murder, senior civil servants are walking away with exorbitant sums of money in pension pay-offs (many of them to return to the fold as well paid special consultants/advisers with scarcely a weekend in between to draw breath.) And then there’s those agreed reduced pay rates agreed by the Government for special advisers and other upper-echelon party hacks and then blatantly ignored.

In what was definitely a first for me, I spent an hour and a half inside a shopping centre on a recent Thursday and left with nary a thing. Didn’t spend a penny. The place was practically empty; it was just short of tumbleweeds blowing down the centre aisle. I looked inside the shops and felt sorry for the shop assistants who had no one to serve. How long can such a situation go on? It can’t be viable to heat and light stores as well as pay wages when no-one’s buying.

I’ve really embraced this whole frugality ethos, buying special offer lunch ingredients at the start of the week and making them do the whole week. I’m proud to say I haven’t deviated once, haven’t succumbed to the temptation of dining out. I’ve gone at my weekly food shop with almost manic zeal, planning meals and making lists. Gone is my ‘it looks nice, toss it in the trolley’ method of shopping.

I avoided the sales and haven’t bought a single new item of clothing in months except for tights and my saving there comes from now buying only the thick opaque ones which last a hell of a lot longer than the sheer, flimsy ones that seldom made it beyond one wear without looking tatty. Those are strictly reserved now for special occasions. And those have been cut back on too – it has to be an awfully big occasion now to warrant a night out never mind a new outfit.

I’m on a mission as regards cutting utility bills – it may be good to talk but it’s expensive too and all appliances are being used far more judiciously. In fact the dishwasher broke and hasn’t been replaced, I’ve gone back to the old-fashioned way and found it to be less laborious than all that scraping, bending down to stack-and-empty business the dishwasher required. And it’s done a lot quicker too. I’m even taking quicker showers – gone are the days of luxuriating under a spray of piping hot water for 10 minutes to 15 minutes. It’s a quick in and out now.

I doubt that I’m the only one in belt-tightening mode. Which can’t be good for economic recovery, or jobs. But what to do with a Government coming at us with a clutch of made-up new charges and taxes on a weekly basis? Is it too much to expect them to get their heads around the ‘less to spend, less spent’ reality? Yeah, I guess it is.

Last week I had a missed call on my mobile phone from my GP urging me to contact him. Because I had been with him the day before for some routine blood work I was a tad concerned.
But when I spoke to him his first question puzzled me.  He asked me had I lost my wallet in New York? I said that I had indeed lost my wallet almost a year ago in New York city while on a brief holiday there with my daughter. He informed me that he had  a phone call from a gentleman in Montreal who was trying to track down the owner of the wallet and when he went through all the contents of my purse (and there was a lot of stuff in there to be gone through!) he found a doctor’s prescription and that’s how he came to contact my GP.  My doctor passed on this man’s name and telephone number for me to contact him. I was astounded that after all that time there was a chance I might actually get my wallet back!
I duly called Pat in Montreal (not knowing if it was the middle of the night or what the time difference was) and he answered immediately. He told me exactly where he had found my wallet and described all my various cards, (organ donor card, diabetes membership card, Visa, Laser, business cards etc.) He told me there was exactly $654.76 in cash in the wallet. He explained that he had tried many times to track me down. He had rung the hotel where I was staying but they refused to divulge any information.  He rang Visa and they likewise would not give out my details.  He really had gone to a lot of trouble to try to reunite me with my wallet.
Now I did have on my organ donor card my next of kin as my hubby and I had his contact number there too. This very kind good Samaritan did in fact ring my husband…… but, horror of horrors ……… I hadn’t told my husband I had lost my purse………. I knew he would moan forever about me  being so careless and I felt stupid enough anyway for having lost it…….so when Pat from Montreal rang hubby to ask did he know an Aine who lost a wallet my husband said no, he didn’t!  Needless to say I was mortified when my husband came home from work one day and informed me that he had got this weird call from some man in Canada………
The day I lost my wallet was the second last day of our brief stay and luckily for me I always carry an emergency fund when I’m travelling so that got me by. I had to ring Grainne in a blind panic and get her to ring the bank (pretending to be me of course) to immediately cancel all my cards before my account was cleaned out!
Montreal Pat went on to tell me that he had put my wallet away in a drawer in his work desk and forgotten about it until the day recently when he decided to clean out his desk and found it. He decided to have one more shot at finding the owner and again went through all the bits and bobs contained therein. He found the prescription and that’s how he came to ring my doctor.  He has popped my wallet in the post, doesn’t even want the cost of posting and packaging.  All contents intact.  What a gentleman. I’m expecting it to arrive any day now.
Its very reassuring, and just plain nice, to know there are some honest, decent people left out there. Thank you sincerely, Pat from Montreal.

Following  Minister of Transport, Tourism and Sport Leo Varadkar’s glib comment that we all could still afford a holiday as the Budget would not be that bad comes his Fine Gael colleague Finance Minister Michael Noonan remarking that our emigrants are leaving to see the world “as a lifestyle choice”. 

Well Minister Noonan, maybe where you come from in Limerick that is the case but I know hundreds of emigrants who have left these shores and it had nothing to do with “lifestyle choices” and everything to do with trying to keep body and soul together, finding a job and making a life for themselves.

They made the choice to try and get a job rather than stay on the dole in Ireland and face a very bleak future with little or no job opportunities, and the banks and lending institutions either snapping at their heels for payback of negative equity mortgages or with no prospect of getting one in the first place . Oh yeah and then Social Protection Minister Joan Burton adds insult to injury by also remarking that, for some, being on the dole is a “lifestyle choice”.  Not for anyone I know, it isn’t.

As I prepare to go to Australia to visit my youngest daughter who has been there for the past three years, I am incensed by tactless throw-away remarks coming from our present Government.

My daughter would dearly love to come home, misses home greatly, but there is no future for her here and therefore she must remain on the other side of the world where at least she has a job with a steady income and a promise of better things.

I know several young people who are currently in Australia picking fruit, hardly a “lifestyle choice”, these are young, well-educated, bright kids who found they had no future at home after leaving college.

It’s easy for you Michael to make such disparaging remarks from your lofty perch in Leinster House.

       I suggest that you take a trip out to Dublin airport and do a quick survey of the people leaving where I think you will find that many of them feel they have no alternative but to take a plane out of here.

Current emigration is splitting up young families, with many young men working in England, leaving behind partners and young children, to try to gain employment to keep a roof over their families’ heads back home. You should be commending them, not insulting them.

When you mention Australia of course it brings to mind images of sandy beaches, warm sunshine etc. but a recent survey by the Irish Independent revealed that of the 70,000 people who emigrated last year, the destinations they chose to call home were the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the USA and Germany.

Another 40,000 are expected to emigrate this year.

Can I suggest that in future all Government Ministers engage their brains before insulting the very people who are willing to get up of their arses and take charge of their lives, in whatever part of the world they think offers them the best opportunity.

The outcome of the public consultation undertaken last year by the Minister for Public Enterprise Brendan Howlin on how the State can save money makes for interesting reading. 

Its seems that public servants were major contributors to the exercise, suggesting ways money could be saved by having their allegedly more work-shy colleagues accountable by linking pay increments to performance assessments.

It wasn’t surprising that many of the suggestions related to cutting spending in social welfare. While there is undoubtedly a case to be made for investigating welfare fraud and cutting off people who are illegally receiving benefits, such widespread condemnation of the system must be galling for the thousands of newly unemployed people who, if given the choice, would prefer to have their jobs back than be on the greatly reduced rates of income the State pays them to get by. Last year, for a period between April and June I found myself unemployed. I spent 12 hour days submitting my CV to companies across Ireland for a variety of jobs, many requiring a lot less experience and expertise than I had. I would have done anything to return to work. Before receiving any payment, which took several weeks, I had to furnish the Department of Social Protection with a large amount of paperwork and two forms of photographic ID, my passport and driving licence. Four weeks after payment began I received a letter from them, telling me to present myself at my nearest FAS office to see what assistance may be available to me in finding work. Failure to turn up, I was warned, could result in my payment being stopped. I was incensed. 64 job applications, six interviews and three fulltime and one partime job offer later, I took the best of the bunch and thankfully returned to the workforce. Not everyone is as lucky.

Of all of the submissions made, I wonder if anyone suggested a ban on Government Ministers refurbishing their offices as Brendan Howlin himself did shortly after taking over as Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform last year. As Aine wrote on this website at the time, the man charged with reducing Government spending had over €47,000 spent on setting up his offices, including €47 for a sign for his toilet door and the same amount for a key for that door. He also spent money having his desk raised. He wasn’t the only Minister who had money spent on refurbishment and/or changes to their offices but it was ironic in his case given that in December’s budget he was announcing €1.4bn cuts in day-to-day expenditure and a €755M reduction in capital spending. “As unpalatable as it might be, we must make some difficult choices in order to contribute to the reduction of the budget deficit” he commented, sanctimoniously.

Here’s a suggestion that I should have probably submitted at the time. That the practice of allowing judges, politicians and others who have the cost of being transported to and from work paid for by the taxpayer be stopped immediately. Likewise with meal allowances for these people. The working public is expected to get to their jobs and home again on a daily basis under their own steam at their own cost. Similarly, they are expected to provide food for themselves from their own funds. It’s a joke to have politicians, judges and high ranking civil servants, who have far more generous pay packets than the average PAYE worker, getting such free perks. Except that no-one’s laughing.

Last Friday the Central Bank took over the running of Newbridge Credit Union, appointing its own Manager.

Apparently there was concern over the way the Credit Union was being run and the Financial Regulator wanted to “safeguard” peoples deposits.  The concern was that the Credit Union hadn’t put enough money aside to protect against potential losses on property-related loans.

I am a member of Newbridge Credit Union. So are my two sons and one daughter.

Today I rang Newbridge Credit Union to see could I speak to anybody in charge as I was concerned about the money I have on deposit there.

Guess what? They weren’t answering their phones!  Instead a specially recorded message directed me to their website which was of no assistance at all.

So, this financial institution is in trouble but instead of allaying the public’s fears they decide to ignore them instead and make themselves unavailable.

Ok then if thats the way they want it I shall be at the door in the morning as they open at 9.30am to remove my money pronto.

Newbridge Credit Union…. behaving like a bank. Welcome to Ireland 2012. Ni feider linn.

        TSB bank today, 12.45pm. I needed to talk to the Assistant Bank Manager. I rang my local branch but was directed to a call centre in Dublin where a gentleman informed me that he would email the man himself and ask him to phone me back! (still waiting for a call back and its now 19.28pm.)

What happened to the good old days when you phoned your local branch and could actually speak with the Manager? Seems not anymore. Customer service ain’t what it used to be.

Speaking of the TSB, I know a person who applied for a mortagage recently with this bank and were turned down because they had overlooked a Visa bill of seven euro some time previously.  Seven euro?  No, that’s not a typo, a paltry seven euro. Not 700, not 7,000, not 70,000, not 700,000, but a mere seven euro was the stated reason the person’s mortgage application would not be entertained.

It was an oversight on the persons side, they’d been on holiday when the bill came in and weren’t back in time for the payment date and so this little matter came back to haunt them when all their financial details were being trawled through by the mortagage advisor. Be warned TSB customers.

Another chap I know recently went to the same bank to enquire about a mortagage. The mortagage advisor asked how long he was in his current employment. He answered a ”couple of months” wherby the advisor informed him that he must be with the same employer for four years.When did this new rule come into play?

Seriously folks are the TSB making up the rules as they go along? No, sorry sir you are bald…. no money for you! You live in a house with an uneven number? Definately no money for you! You are forty but not married and you expect US to give you a mortagage?  Watch the door on the way out loser! You have two kids…… you definitely wouldn’t be able to pay back the repayments on a mortagage! Goodbye!

You have been banking with us for only 30 years….. no hope of getting a mortagage until you are with us at least 50 then we will turn you down on grounds of old age!

I know people who bank with different banks and they dont seem to be a whole lot better.

In my humble opinion it would seem that the banks don’t like the Financial Regulator looking over their shoulder now and so are acting like truculant brats and their recalcitrant attitude means that the customer is suffering.

Is it time to go back to the days of old when you got you wages paid in a little brown envelope in cash?

That way we could tell the banks to f**k off and  Joe Public would be in control of his own finances again!

At a time in this country when integrity is a rare quality, we’ve just lost one of its finest exponents with the untimely death of investigative journalist and broadcaster Mary Raftery. 

I did not know Mary Raferty personally.  But, as someone who worked in journalism and who also covered the issue of clerical sex abuse when the Church (and many citizens) wanted it hushed up, I had tremendous admiration for her conviction that the truth needed to be told, her tenacity in digging out the facts and her courage in presenting them.

She was an exemplary journalist, dogged and undaunted.  Many would have preferred not to hear the unpalatable truths Mary made known about the physical and sexual abuse suffered by children in industrial schools run by the State and managed by religious orders, or the cover-up of clerical child sex abuse allegations.   

The programmes she produced – ‘States of Fear’ about the industrial school abuse and ‘Cardinal Secrets’ about the cover up of clerical child sex abuse allegations were the catalyst for accountability on both these fronts.  The States of Fear documentary lead to the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologising on behalf of the State to victims of institutional abuse.  It also led to the Ryan Commissions being set up, allowing victims the chance to tell their stories, and to the setting up by the Government of the Residential Institutions Redress Board which provided thousands of victims with monetary compensation for what they had suffered.

Her programme Cardinal Secrets, with RTE’s Mick Peelo, led to the Dail passing the Commission of Investigation Act 2004 and the setting up of the Murphy Commission, which was extended beyond its initial remit to investigate abuse allegations in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese to also include Cloyne.  She exposed the treatment of inmates at the country’s notorious Magdalene laundries too.

It is for her pioneering and indomitable chronicling of clerical abuse in those areas that she was best known.   Her investigative journalism also covered other important stories too though, such as deaths in Garda custody, stories of medical negligence and the shenanigans of property developers.  She also wrote a column for the Irish Times, pieces that were always considered and thought provoking. 

Her last television documentary once again returned to the theme of victimisation of some of Irish society’s most vulnerable people.  A history of Ireland’s psychiatric hospitals chronicled some of the appalling conditions they operated under.

A frequent contributor to many current affairs programmes, Mary always came across as a person without ego, diffident almost, but would outline the facts with deadly calm and was absolutely resolute in her conviction of where wrongdoing was found, and fearless in saying it.

Ireland has lost a valiant proponent of truth and justice.  Journalism has lost its standard bearer.

May she rest in peace.

1. Go to see a kid’s 3-D movie.  There’s plenty of them about and they’re great fun!    
2. Read the Bill Bryson book ‘A Walk in the Woods’ and laugh out loud.
3. Stand outside on a cold night, look up at the stars and realise that we’re all part of something that’s much bigger, and greater, than all of us.
4. Look at the amazing patterns the gossamer makes on shrubs, trees, even the clothesline early on damp mornings.
5. Soak in a hot bath with a couple of spoonfuls of Epsom Salts added.  Simple, relaxing, effective.
6. Look back over old photograph albums.  All our happiest memories are recorded there and it makes us realise how many there were.
7. Look out for the first of the new-born lambs, coming soon to a field near you.  One of the most life-affirming sights of the year.
8. Across the countryside that hardiest and most delicate of flowers, the snowdrop, is making an appearance.  Magic.
9. Don’t listen to any news or current affairs broadcasts or read news for a while.  Choose not to hear bad news.
10. Listen to your favourite music, played loud.  Guaranteed to lift the mood.