Madam, - Why is the public service sector "benchmarked" against the private sector?
While we are all at the mercy of global economics to one degree or another, the private sector in particular is widely affected by factors such as the trend to move manufacturing businesses to low-wage economies, for example.
On the positive side, private-sector workers can sometimes benefit from stock and share options (though why makes some multinationals operating here feel they have the right to ban unions is another matter).
The public sector has a number of benefits that the private sector simply does not have: in general terms, public sector workers are insulated against many of the problems that regularly beset private workers.
I work in both sectors, and have no issue with the way wages and salaries are worked out in either, but we should all have an issue with trying to get blood from a stone. The country is currently awash with water, but the days when it was awash with money are gone.
I have an inkling that some private-sector workers are paid too much, and some public-sector workers are not paid enough, but until there is parity in working conditions there will not be parity in pay. - Yours, etc,
DECLAN KENNY, Leixlip, Co Kildare.