Madam, – Congratulations to Sarah Carey for highlighting “the major policy reversal” just before Christmas on the Budget proposal to cut senior public servants’ pay (Opinion, December 30th). The original decision was, according to Ms Carey, to cut public servant pay over €165,000 by between 12 per cent and 15 per cent. In a major U-turn that cut is now reduced to between 3 and 5 per cent.
This is a similar sleight of hand that saw an announcement of a cut of 15 per cent in politicians’ pay actually amount to a 5 per cent cut.
The attitude of those powerful people in Government, who played a large part in getting us into mess we are in, is that cutting the pay of the higher paid is “not fair” but cutting the allowances of the disabled and blind is. – Yours, etc,