Sir, – We have public sector unions demanding pay increases at a time when an overwhelming majority of private sector employees are facing either redundancy or pay reductions.
This means of course that they are seeking these pay increases at a time when the economic base on which public expenditure relies is shrinking.
The sheltered unions are seeking therefore to increase their share of a shrinking economic “cake” at the expense of the non-sheltered market sector at the very time when the latter is in most need of funding support to enable it to survive.
Never has Government spin rang so hollow, as TDs prepare to go off on their six weeks of holidays, despite the fact that it took 135 days to elect a new Taoiseach.
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We are not all in this together.
Pay cuts and redundancy for the majority of our citizens; pay increases for the public sector – and indeed for the politicians whose salaries are linked to a civil service higher grade.
I would respectfully suggest that we are not all in this together while one sector of our society remains cosseted from the financial hammering that many of our citizens are taking and while the older members of our society benefit at the expense of our younger members. – Yours, etc,
ANTAINE O’DUIBHIR,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.