OPINION:While we have all been pump-primed for pain, the State slips and slides in indecision. Clarity on all cuts are needed, writes MARK HENNESSY
FOR MONTHS, Taoiseach Brian Cowen has needed to show the public the pain necessary to solve the State’s current problems is being taken first, and most, by those who decide the fate of others.
Ministers’ pay is already down by 20 per cent and that of others by less; the pension levy has affected all of them as it has other public servants. These are not petty cuts, but they have occurred singly, and not as an all-embracing package.
In the end, TDs and Senators, many of whom have been obsessed about their pay cheques for months, will all end up worse-off for the failure of the class as a whole and Cowen in particular to act quickly and decisively. Politicians will argue, not unfairly, that they were never going to get credit from the public for anything they did. True, but they could have at least attempted to neutralise the sore with the public. For decades, TDs and senators were badly paid. Many older ones still remember the scars of life in the 1980s when rolling elections nearly put many of them into bankruptcy.
But this changed, as it did for most State employees, in the Celtic Tiger years. The instigator for much of it was Charlie McCreevy, who had cash to spend and lavished salary rises upon his colleagues, along with a plethora of allowances and expenses that made him for a time popular.
This also kept people quiet. Once, many politicians could legitimately argue they could earn more if they stayed in the private sector, rather than sacrificing themselves and their families for the public weal.
However, that day has disappeared. Blessed with unvouched expenses which would have landed the rest of us in serious trouble with the accounts department and a €100,000 basic salary, even backbenchers could have hoped to toddle home with a gross income over €150,000, even if those figures are going south now.
Independent TDs do even better because they get a €41,000 tax-free sum directly, which for those wearing a party flag goes straight to run central operations. In his emergency Budget speech earlier this month, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan made it clear TDs and Senators would have to take pain if they were going to ask the public to do so: “Before we ask anyone else to give, we in this House and in the Government must examine our own costs. Those of us in politics have been entrusted with a great privilege by the people. We must lead by example.”
He went on to say that the Government had decided to introduce “a number of additional changes to the remuneration of deputies and Senators”, along with a 10 per cent reduction in expenses and a 25 per cent cut in mileage.
And then – and this is the nub of the issue in this week’s controversy – he said: “Deputies will no longer receive long-service payments or increments.” Under rules brought in by McCreevy in 2001, TDs get a €3,000-a-year addition to their salary if they survive for seven years, and it rises to €6,000-plus if they stay for 10 years.
The long-service increments were justified – and, indeed, justifiable to a degree – by the fact such increments were, and are, a feature of the pay of civil servants of a similar salary.
The point was reported but nothing much was made of it, however, because the changes were small by the standards of the cuts that were affecting every other taxpayer.
On the night, it was clear, particularly after the point was checked by Fianna Fáil TDs at their post-Budget parliamentary party, that it would not affect existing members who already qualify. Instead, the increments would not be offered to those currently in the Dáil with less than seven years’ service, or to those who will take up seats after elections to come.
In fact, it would have been a little surprising if the increments were to be taken back from those who already had them since they are legally protected and given how jealously all in the public pay watch over their entitlements.
However, the continuation of the increments for the 66 qualifiers led to much outrage and allegations of bad faith when the story was published this week.
Questioned up hill and down dale about the matter on Thursday, the Department of Finance insisted Lenihan had never misled anyone, and that the intention was clear from the beginning. Increments could not be taken from anyone already receiving them: the very idea, in fact, was unimaginable. The Green Party’s Dan Boyle said, roughly, the same thing. Even if the point was wrong (which it is not since it is backed up by precedents) or just politically daft (a point where it is on much weaker ground given the tempers in society currently), it was, at least, consistent.
Then, however, Cowen spoke to journalists in Tullamore late on Thursday and said the exact opposite. The legal questions about removing increments were being looked at, he said. Questioned yesterday, Finance was forced to sing a different tune. There was now no contradiction between what either Lenihan or Cowen had said because Lenihan’s Budget speech had said that legislation would follow.
However, there is a contradiction and Cowen now risks further antagonising fellow politicians by coming back to the well if he follows through on his Tullamore statement. If he does not, a story which should never have arisen will not go away.
His actions are typical of the lack of clear decision-making, appalling communications and policy shifts forced by media pressure or public anger that have been exhibited too often by him to date.
Politicians are already in cantankerous form. Oireachtas committee chairs are ready to revolt over plans to cut their numbers, and extra payments.
Many Fianna Fáil TDs will be even more foul-tempered when the junior ministers’ team is known. It would be hard to make Leinster House look worse if one tried.