Madam, – The ongoing CPSU industrial action at the Passport Office has led to a serious state of affairs whereby citizens’ right to leave the country (to destinations other than the UK) is being directly impinged upon.
Clearly, there is an argument to introduce legislation to protect citizens from being placed in a limbo status where it is impossible for them to travel overseas due to the edict of a trade union. If the protective strike notice issued by the CPSU is converted to a full-scale strike, then there would be an onus to issue such legislation on an emergency basis.
While it is understandable that there is widespread frustration within the CPSU over pay cuts, this should not be expressed by encouraging interference with this basic individual freedom of those not connected with the dispute, and this should be reflected accordingly in law. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The staff behaviour at the Passport Office should result in the same consequences as it would were those same staff working in the private sector: they should all be laid off immediately and the work outsourced to a private company. No private sector worker would even dream of such action at a time of 400,000-plus unemployed.
Ronald Reagan’s solution to the air traffic controllers’ strike in the 1980s made clear that he would not allow his country to be threatened by the unions. They stopped working: he fired them. That ended forever the notion of the air controllers holding the US travelling public to ransom.
Now is the time for the same solution at the Passport Office. The staff at the office is holding the Irish travelling public to ransom and what is worse, without consequence. This is outrageous. Along with holding secure jobs and guaranteed pensions, they can now decide to stop working and earn not a penny less!
Just who is running this country? Maybe Brian Cowen was allowed to reshuffle the Cabinet but it is Blair Horan and his friends who are making the decisions. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I have seen my country made bankrupt by greed and corruption in banking, business and politics. The public response to this has been practically nonexistent. Yet, when a group of lowly- paid civil servants in the Passport Office take a stand to defend their working terms and conditions, there is a public outcry.
I am ashamed to be Irish when I see people turning on each other in this manner. If the members of the public who are so outraged wanted to end to the stalemate in the passport office they would show their support to the members of the CPSU. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Tom Keenan (March 24th) suggests that the ghosts of Larkin and Connolly must be squirming in their graves at the Passport Office affair.
I hope they will come back to haunt those who have made Irish trade unions a laughing stock in France and other European countries. In the past 18 months modestly-paid public and civil servants have suffered a net decrease of up to 20 per cent in their take home pay due to income and health levies, a pension levy and pay cuts.
Because this decrease was not named as one big cut, its severity and devastating effect on families (who have mortgage and child care commitments which cannot be written off) has been masked.
Indeed trade union members are asking if even their own leaders understand their plight. The reversal of cuts for the higher paid public and civil servants, etc, the massive increases for some of the Nama executives and the increases for some Anglo Irish staff, have been provocative in the extreme. – Yours, etc,