Pay and the public sector

Sir, – Stephen Collins’s opinions on the public sector pay issue continue to amuse. Should he decide to write a serious article on this issue, here are some facts that might help.

According to the Central Bank, during the recession 75 per cent of private sector workers received no pay cut. Of the 25 per cent who did, the average pay cut was 5per cent. Public sector workers received pay cuts of between 15 per cent and 20 per cent before any tax increases. Hospital beds in this country remain closed because the HSE can’t attract nurses. The main reason Ireland lags behind in international science and technology subjects in comparative educational tests is because the Department of Education cannot attract graduates from third-level maths, physics and chemistry courses into teaching.

A pay cut is also a pension cut. Many semi-State employees continued to receive relatively generous pay increases throughout the recession without any hue and cry.

The words “restoration” and “increase” do not mean the same thing. – Yours, etc,

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PATRICK MURPHY,

Kilkenny.

Sir, – In The Devil's Dictionary, Ambrose Bierce defined a cynic as a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. I would offer no defence to a charge of cynicism thus defined for daring to describe an increase in salary as a salary increase. But if Donal McGrath (November 23rd) is to be believed, this transgression makes me guilty of the much more modern sin of engaging in post-truth politics.

Most public servants will receive regular increases in their salaries subject to satisfactory performance. The last time I checked the performance evaluation system in the civil service 0.08 per cent of the population was found to be performing at an unacceptable level. The result was that 99.92 per cent of civil servants, including those whose performance needed improvement, would have been awarded a performance-related increase in salary. In short, “satisfactory performance” is not a high benchmark and the apparently-conditional increases are to all intents and purposes guaranteed. But we must understand that for some, these regular increases in salary are in no circumstances to be referred to as salary increases. They are merely increments.

Senior gardaí­ lodged a claim for an additional 16.5 per cent in their pay. The good news for those who are expected to pay the bill is that this is not a pay rise. Oh, no! This is simply the restoration of everything they lost during the recession including pay cuts, the pension levy and pay increases forgone. Their representative body believed this demand was “very fair”.

I would like to put forward a few other restoration projects.

I would like to have my income tax burden restored to its level in 2006. I would like to have my self-funded pension scheme restored to its pre-crash level, and while we’re at it I would like to have the pension levy restored to the fund. I would like to have the value of my home restored to the levels prevailing in 2007. I would like to see all the private-sector jobs lost in the crash restored and I would like to see the pre-crash terms and conditions of those in the private sector who did not lose their jobs restored. It goes without saying that all these restoration projects should be paid for out of the public purse.

It is depressing that the nonsense we now hear daily from representatives of public-sector workers appears to be taken seriously. Recently you disclosed that bus drivers in public employment are paid at least 25 per cent more than those in the private sector. This did not prevent a pay award which Dublin Bus says it cannot afford and which will, of course, be paid for by those who are passengers or taxpayers or both. You have highlighted that pensions to civil servants are paid at levels which could not be funded for private-sector employees. You have reported that the cost of accommodating a patient in a publicly run nursing home is up to €700 per week higher than in a private facility – and that staffing costs account for the bulk of the expenditure in public facilities.

Who will speak for the taxpayer who pays for this parallel universe? – Yours, etc,

PAT O’BRIEN,

Rathmines,

Dublin 6.