Sir, – Stephen Collins often calls the public service “bloated” but now argues against reducing public service staffing (Opinion Analysis, January 28th).
The Institute of Public Administration report he mentions based its analysis of public service pay on a 2011 OECD review, which found that virtually all Irish public servants are paid on a par with OECD and EU averages. This report did not take account of the so-called “pension levy”.
Cutting the pay of the few posts paid above international norms is not the alternative to staff reductions that Mr Collins supposes. There are so few public servants in this category that even the outright abolition of the posts would not generate enough savings to balance our books or meet our international commitments.
Mr Collins writes about “very generous pensions” but omits to say that 78 per cent of civil service pensioners receive annual pensions of €30,000 or less.
He criticises “sweeteners” and “incentives”, even though those who retire from the public service this month will get nothing extra. All will be subject to the blanket cut in public service pensions introduced last year, and those who retire early will have their pension further reduced to reflect their reduced years of work and pension contributions.
This means that only those already at, or very close to, retirement age can benefit in any way by leaving this month.
Mr Collins again calls for the abolition of the Croke Park agreement without putting forward any credible alternative method of reducing costs or – equally important – managing services at a time of massively increased demand and slashed spending.
He doesn’t mention that the Croke Park agreement directly led to annual savings of over €680 million in the year up to June 2011, exceeding Government targets. The trend has continued in the second half of 2011 and is likely to accelerate in 2012 to meet the new budget objective of an additional €400 million in payroll savings.
Through staff reductions and other reforms (less leave, extended working hours, rationalisation of agencies, centralised and shared services, staff relocation and redeployment, and many other changes), we are on target to deliver total annual savings of €3.5 billion in the public service pay bill by 2015. – Yours, etc,