Sir, – Your headline “NTMA warned Noonan against €200,000 pay cap” (Front page, February 11th) is a wonderful example of self-serving by extraordinarily well-paid public executives. This Government’s salary cap for the public service is a revolutionary step. It is the first time since 1931, when Éamon de Valera said “no man is worth more than £1,000 a year”, that any attempt has been made to tackle the ever-widening pay gap in Ireland.
The Government’s attempt to limit the pay of top public servants is very important in building a decent society. Brendan Howlin’s move will 1. help the public purse, 2. help narrow a growing pay gap for the first time in decades, 3. have a major demonstration effect and 4. improve social solidarity.
The NTMA cites the pull of enormous salaries in the private sector. The labour market is becoming polarised between “cool jobs and crap jobs”. At the top, owners and top executives are paying themselves obscene and utterly undeserved sums, as shareholders are unable to govern them. They have rewritten the rules of corporate governance, of “shareholder capitalism”, in their own favour. This is what makes Government policy on top pay so important.
Another reason top pay in the private sector is still so high is that the biggest buyer of its services, the State, is poor at demanding value for money. The biggest legal, accounting and other professional firms, often the same ones which validated the banks’ accounts, charge the taxpayer far too much.
The Government is doing a great job with the salary cap. It should re-double its efforts to cap top public and private salaries. In so doing, it will help address people’s anger at the excesses in the private banking sector which brought down the Irish economy and society. – Yours, etc,