Public sector needs to get a grip on harsh financial reality

We’ve heard many times over the last few weeks that we must not do anything that will result in a return to the ways of the bad old days that preceded the crash in 2009.

Indeed, some of our more experienced and cunning politicians, people who should know better, were heard to utter what is now clearly becoming little more than a mantra.

The simple fact is that as they uttered those words, they themselves were facilitating actions that will, almost inevitably, result in a free-for-all across the public sector with demands to not only match what the gardaí have been offered but to actually surpass them.