Sir, – The “group of already advantaged workers” referred to in your ill-informed Editorial (December 11th) have suffered two very significant cuts to their pay in the last few years and some have suffered three cuts.
It may well be that up to 30 per cent of employees of The Irish Times are underperformers, but it is a sweeping generalisation to suggest that up to 30 per cent of workers in either the public or private sector perform their jobs in an unacceptable fashion.
Promotion in the civil service is exclusively on merit, with staff being assessed by a range of assessment methods judged suited to this purpose by the Public Appointments Service. Whatever complaint one may have about promotion systems in use in the civil service it cannot be on the basis that they are conducted on the basis of “Buggins’ Turn”, as the Editorial suggests.
You assert the cost of incremental progression is €40m per annum. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform is on the record as saying the cost in 2013 is less than half that figure and, is in fact, €16.5m. In 2013 just 36 per cent of civil servants received increments and 76 per cent of employees who receive increments in each year earn annual salaries of less than €50,000. – Yours, etc,
BILLY HANNIGAN,
Public Service Executive
Union,
Merrion Square, Dublin 2.