Sir, - I was disappointed at the failure of your paper to give due recognition to those few bodies which have neither been duped nor seduced by the Social Partnership Process.
It has been argued by ISME that under the last two Programmes, the wealth generated had been disproportionately gobbled up by the public sector in excessive wage increases. Our position was subsequently supported by both the ESRI (in two reports) and the NESC report "Strategy into the 21st Century" (October, 1996).
I find it extraordinary that Partnership 2000 can now be published without critical comment. When "specials" and "increments" are factored in the public sector, pay award over the next three years will be close to 18 per cent and not the 9.25 per cent as claimed in the Programme. The cost to the taxpayer will be an additional £1 billion in taxation.
Put another way: if the number of public servants does not increase over the next three years, then their average remuneration package will be £30,000 a year as against £12,000 in the competitive sector. In the Taoiseach's own words, "that represents the triumph of bureaucracy over enterprise".
ISME is not against wage increases for public servants. It rather wishes to see a code of efficiencies and cost cutting practices to free up the necessary resources to fund realistic public sector wage increases, rather than adding to the public sector pay bill.
It was noticeable on Budget Day that when Ruairi Quinn was pushed on his spending plans he repeatedly placed responsibility for the spend on the shoulders of the "Major Social Partners".
Let me give just one example of the corrupt thinking process within the State sector with respect to expenditure. Teachers justify their wage levels being 50 per cent higher than those in the UK on the basis of the large class sizes they have to deal with. Is it not a more valid argument to explain the class sizes by virtue of the disproportion of education funding that is allocated to pay and perks?
Budget Day's "giveaway" should have been funded by expenditure restraint, rather than by borrowing. - Yours, etc.,
Chief executive ISME, 17 Kildare Street,
Dublin 2.