“We can’t afford to take another hit. Myself and my husband are both nurses and we have had our income slashed between PRSI, income levies and the pension levy. We already work unsociable hours at a cost to our children – should we be expected to do that for even less pay?”
– Mental health nurse Brenda Piercy
“The focus is clearly on us. We have no problem paying our share, but we have done so already. The simple fact is that somebody else needs to step up and share the pain.”
– Psychiatric nurse Paul Brophy
“Workers in the public service are being targeted. There’s an awful lot of wealth in this country, but there’s very little tax being paid by them. The Government has taken a clear choice to attack those who have already taken a 12 per cent pay cut this year. Everybody is here to say enough is enough.”
– John Healy of the Garda Representative Association
“We’re sitting ducks. There is no alternative for most of our profession in the private sector. We’re stuck. If our jobs are all that good, why did we have to go abroad to get thousands of nurses to prop up the health service? We don’t want them to target private sector workers or public sector workers. We are paying a lot at the moment and we realise more will be needed, but we are not going to be vilified. There’s more thought at the moment of the criminals on the street than for us who mop up after them.”
– Nurse Eilish Corcoran
“A lot of people are so furious now at the way the Government are treating them that I think it’ll be hard to get them to provide cover on November 24th .”
– John Kidd of Dublin Fire Brigade
