Croke Park has to meet its goals and prove points

As the cost of the public service comes under increasing scrutiny, the reforms brought by the Croke Park Agreement may not be enough. The groups involved must work quickly or they will have to consider alternative methods to improve the sector, writes Kyran FitzGerald

THE Budget axe has been wielded. The backbenchers are growing restive. The popular press is roused.

Increasingly, as the downturn grinds remorselessly on, the question is being asked: Can we afford an agreement that leaves Irish state employees among the best paid in the world at a time when the country is in the second year of an EU/IMF bailout, with public service expenditure still running far in excess of income?