Madam, – Your paper reports Siptu’s claim that the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and other commentators had engaged in “deliberate misrepresentation” of earnings data and that the ESRI had been “engaged as much in campaigning as commentary” on the issue of public sector pay (Finance, December 1st).
These claims are false. Far from being engaged in deliberate misrepresentation, ESRI researchers have followed international best practice in their analysis of detailed earnings data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). While Pat McArdle, writing on the same day, described the matter as being “fiendishly complex”, the truth is that the ESRI analysis is straightforward in terms of the application of modern economic methods to analyse economy-wide earnings differentials.
As a publicly-funded research institute established in 1960 to produce independent research for policy, the ESRI’s mission is to place in the public domain research findings based on the best available data and methodologies. Details and the researchers’ comments on the Siptu report are on the ESRI website: www.esri.ie.
The ESRI’s researchers have analysed the full CSO data set to explore the gap between public and private sector earnings, in contrast to the Siptu report which uses selective tabulations of the CSO data to support its case for no reduction in public sector pay. Such contrasting approaches are understandable given the very different mandates of the two bodies.