Public servants ‘should not have to apologise for earning their pay’

THE portrayal of public servants as overpaid, lazy, and backward-looking bureaucrats was last night rejected by the leader of the country’s biggest public sector union.

IMPACT president Nicholas Keogh also defended the benchmarking awards and told public servants not to apologise for drawing their pay, to which they were fully entitled. He also accused some of the union's critics of wanting public services to fail.

"Public servants should get off the defensive and be proud of the services they deliver," he told the opening of the 52,000-member union's biennial conference, in Tralee, Co Kerry.