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Public sector unions living in dreamland

Monday, July 27, 2009


ON behalf of the taxpayer I would like to congratulate Colm McCarthy on completing such a comprehensive report on what we need to do with the public sector.


I know he was not allowed pay any heed to the real elephant in the room – public sector pay rates – but nonetheless he has completed a marvellous report, so good I feel the taxpayer could do with his services at least every one to two years.

In the next six months we will see who really runs the country.

The taxpayer has had to endure many months listening to Jack O’Connor and David Begg on how to do just that, even though they were never elected to anything. I didn’t vote for them anyway.

Mr O’Connor reckons the Bord Snip cuts are a "fantasy". Well, we can hold off on making the cuts if he wishes, but we’ll be bankrupt by January and then he can do the explaining to his members when the public sector salary payments bounce.

Also, instead of losing 20,000 members (he was going to lose those anyway through natural wastage), he could lose 200,000 if the IMF were to arrive.

What we have now is one interest group that has become so powerful it is holding the rest of the country to ransom.

This cannot continue. The unions must be broken up as they are now a systemic threat to the sovereign state.

Public sector unions are living in dreamland if they think young people will support their members by increasing taxation on the rich and private sector workers so they can have salaries 30% to 40% above the private sector.

What else would Mr O’Connor like for his members?

A villa in Spain, maybe?

A pad in Chamonix ?

Unfortunately for the public sector unions, they don’t understand how easy it is for young people to leave.

Technology has paved the way. Mobile phones, Facebook, Twitter, blogging , internet banking have all arrived since glasnost. Imagine, we have little computers that enable you to run a business from our hands.

There are no border controls to keep us in. We can leave. The rest of the world will be out of recession come Christmas. We can depart then and work overseas. Imposing 60% tax on everybody to pay inflated public sector salaries does not cut any ice with a private sector sick to the teeth of it all.

We’ve had to listen to the public sector commotion about having to pay their own pensions.

The shame of it.

Pay for your own pension?

How dare they...

Enough is enough.

Bring on perestroika, McCarthy-style.

John Kenneally
Laburnum Lawn
Model Farm Road
Cork