Sir, – Your Editorial (December 7th) claims that public sector wages and pensions “are approximately 50 per cent higher than in comparable European countries.”
A recent OECD review found that, except for a very small number of grades, Irish public service pay is on a par with OECD and EU averages when local purchasing power is taken into account. Its comparison of “relative purchasing power” is routinely used by employers, governments and academics to make international comparisons of pay in both the public and private sectors.
Similarly, while recent political and media attention has understandably focused on indefensible and unsustainable pension packages for a very few senior public servants, an answer to a recent Dáil question revealed that 78 per cent of civil service pensioners receive annual pensions of €30,000 or less.
In recent years, it has been common to read media criticism of a “bloated” public service although, even at the height of the boom, OECD studies found that the size of the Irish public service was in line with countries of comparable size. Now that the Croke Park agreement is delivering substantial staffing reductions we are told that this is not the “real problem”. Your Editorial suggests that “front line” services are being hit hardest by staff cuts. In fact, the biggest reduction has occurred in management and administration grades. For example, the number of health service management and administrative staff is down by over 7.4 per cent and the fall in the number of civil service principal officers is three times the average reduction.
The Croke Park agreement directly led to annual savings of over €680 million in the year up to June 2011, exceeding Government targets. The trend has continued in the second half of 2011 and is likely to accelerate in 2012 to meet the new Budget objective of an additional €400 million in public service payroll savings. Through staff reductions and other reforms (less leave, extended working hours, rationalisation of agencies, centralised and shared services, staff relocation and redeployment, and many other changes) we are on target to deliver total annual savings of €3.5 billion in the public service pay bill by 2015. – Yours, etc,