‘Fire brigade legislation targets public servants’

THE pension levy is “fire brigade legislation” that will hammer public servants, Fine Gael said last night.

Speaking during a Dáil debate on the legislation that will give effect to the levy, Fine Gael TD Bernard Durkan said it was being introduced because the Government had mismanaged the economy in recent years and now had to raise cash.

“We now have fire brigade legislation that is attempting to deal with issues that were not dealt with over the past six or seven years,” he said. “The public are now being hammered and must take a punishment beating for the inadequacies of the Government… The public service is taking the punishment beating in the first instance.”