Servants paid far more than those they are supposedly serving

AT least there’s one group in the country that shouldn’t have to worry that we are third from the top of the EU’s borrowing league, according to the Central Bank’s reckoning.

They are the 100-plus senior civil and public servants who earn between €150,000 and €200,000 and who can look forward to increases far more generous than those of their paymasters, us.

While their wallets would need a security dog, most of us can look forward to getting the terms of the new national pay agreement, towards 2016, if we are lucky. That provides for a niggardly 10% pay rise over 27 months and includes a minimum wage increase to be applied from January.