Is it about a bicycle?
How an insidious and labyrinthine allowances system hides true pay in public sector
Flann O’Brien’s black comic masterpiece The Third Policeman concerns a man in search of an ever-elusive box of cash.
But he gets caught up in the insanely bureacratic clutches of a bunch of bicycle-obsessed policemen led by a Sergeant Pluck, who turn logic on its head as they repeatedly thwart him.
It’s a bit like trying to finding money for tax cuts as the guards, bus drivers, teachers and other public sector workers throw spanners in the works by demanding more money.
The Third Policeman should be required reading, not to mention O’Brien’s other classic An Beal Bhocht, in order to fully comprehend public sector claims for pay hikes that exceed rises elsewhere - on top of pay that is already 42% higher than the private sector.
Sgt Pluck's catchphrase was "Is it about a bicycle?" Well, it is indeed. Or at least about a bicycle allowance – and over 100 other ones.
Let me explain…
Like O’Brien’s comic creations, public sector unions seem to inhabit a cartoon Ireland, a comically surreal land where nothing is quite as it seems and logic is turned on its head.
They repeatedly point out how young guards can’t live on a starting of €23,750 – nor teachers on their starting pay packet of €31k.
That is low. But once in the public sector you’re on an elevator of ever-rising pay that sees the gardaí get €42,138 after 8 years with two further increments after 13 and 19 years' service bringing pay up to €45,793.
And there are allowances to top this up.
Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald estimated recently that “unsocial hours payments (alone)…amount to between 25% and 30% of (garda) earnings.”
“Even at the entry level of €23,750 and the lower end of unsocial hours scale, this will add almost €6,000 to the salary. Other allowances may also be payable, as may overtime.”
A bicycle allowance is no longer paid to new guards but it is still “paid to members of garda and sergeant rank who have been directed to provide themselves with a bicycle,” an official guide states.
The mountain bike unit doesn’t get this allowance. But at the last count there were 70 Sergeant Plucks paid €2.77 a week – or two pounds 15 shillings and four pence in old money - to help with the upkeep of their bicycles (or possibly to compensate for partly turning into one as O’Brien’s book warned would happen to overenthusiastic cyclists.)
In another Flann-O’Brienesque twist, there are garda allowances for not getting allowances. For example, if a garda is on an exchange programme with another force and doesn’t qualify for the juicy perks available here, he or she gets an allowance to compensate.
An allowance paid to compensate gardaí for working regular hours – because such hours prevented them from earning extra for working “unsocial hours” - has been stopped for new members, yet still exists.
Among 42 allowances that were investigated and allowed to continue after a review in 2012 were a “plain clothes” allowance that compensates members of the force for wearing their own clothes in the line of duty (because they don't get a uniform allowance).
Little wonder that these lucrative perks – some them tax free - are a key battleground in the wrangle over garda pay.
A Government proposal to restore the rent allowance – worth over €4,000 – for gardaí recruited since 2012 was not enough.
The Garda Representative Association, which represents rank-and-file members, wants terms and conditions that existed prior to 2008 reinstated, including presumably the bicycle allowance, plus a new “police service” allowance as well.
The Lansdowne Road Agreement is the agreed structure for industrial relations and pay within the public service until 2018. This will boost public sector pay by €844m.
If gardaí are given a special deal, the accord would collapse, leading to spiralling industrial unrest and undermining the stability of public finances.
This would undermine hopes of tax cuts to ease pressure on private sector workers, who inhabit another O’Brien fantasy world outlined in An Beal Bocht.
This a place called Corcha Dorcha, where “it never stops raining and everyone lives in desperate poverty (and always will).”