THOUSANDS OF protesters gathered in Dublin yesterday to warn the Government that it should not dare to test the resolve of frontline public service workers.
An estimated 3,000 nurses, gardaí, firemen, paramedics and prison officers – united as the 24/7 Frontline Services Alliance – participated in the march, which culminated with a rally at the gates of Leinster House and the handing in of a letter of protest to Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan.
After marching across the city, the crowd was told public service workers should not be scapegoated or be made pay for errors in Government economic policy.
In his address to the rally, Des Kavanagh, chairman of the 24/7 Frontline Services Alliance, said proposals to cut the public sector payroll by €1.3 billion were unfair and that a universal contribution should instead be made by all those who could afford to.
“Fairness demands that the bankers, the speculators, the investors and those with wealth are not exempted,” he said.
Mr Kavanagh, who is general secretary of the Psychiatric Nurses Association, warned those who see frontline workers as an easy target – because many of them are legally prohibited from striking – that they “are not fools and we will not be treated as such”.
“We do not want to be in dispute. We do not want to strike. We do not want our frontline services undermined. However, we must caution the Government: do not test our resolve because we will not be found wanting.”
Irish Congress of Trade Unions president Jack O’Connor said the Government was acting on the dictates of 5 per cent of the population who own 40 per cent of the wealth, which would prove to the detriment of everybody else.
Mr O’Connor said the Government was playing a heinous game of “divide and ruin” between the public and private sectors, which pitted worker against worker.
“It is a game which seeks to divide people who have been unreasonably deprived of their employment in the recent past by reason of gross mismanagement of the economy against those who are still at work,” he said.
Mr O’Connor said he was determined that a way will be found out of the problems which the Government have “consigned our generation of Irish men and women to”.
“We are even determined to find an agreement to pay the way out of that problem,” he said.
However, he said if an agreement is to be found between the Government and trade unions it will have to recognise that the people who have the most money should contribute the most to try to get the country back on track.
Eugene Dennehy, of the Prison Officers Association, said public sector workers had been vilified, degraded and insulted by certain sections of society, and that a battle was now being fought.
