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.

It’s no wonder private borrowing is at an incredible €302.7 billion, living as we do in one of the most expensive countries on the planet with some of the most expensive civil servants.

Anybody glancing down the list that appeared in this newspaper on Tuesday will understand quite readily why Progressive Democrats leader Michael McDowell chose to follow Bertie Ahern during the Taoiseach’s recent financial embarrassment instead of leading the PDs out of coalition.

Not that Bertie was in financial trouble — he doesn’t understand the meaning of it. It was just embarrassing for the rest of the country to hear he took a load of dosh from wealthy buddies when he was finance minister and another load from businessmen for doing what he considered was a private gig in Manchester.

When Mary Harney stood down as leader of the PDs, which meant she also had to relinquish her position as Tánaiste, Michael McDowell took her place in both openings.

One look at his payslip determined whether the PDs stayed in Government with Fianna Fáil or took a hike over ethics. The payslip won.

Apart altogether from the change in status, McDowell also became entitled to the salary of Tánaiste, which is a cool €222,256, including his TD’s salary, which is €93,667.

But it’s still not as much as Bertie Ahern, his boss.

It’s little wonder Bertie had no trouble in paying back €90,000 — including interest — to his rich buddies, because he’s being paid €258,730. He gets €162,170 for the privilege of being Taoiseach, and another €96,560 for being a TD.

But — at least, according to the latest opinion polls — the majority of people in this country don’t mind that he’s paid more than Tony Blair, the British Prime Minister. Bertie obviously does not believe size matters, apart from the pay, because he presides over just a fraction in comparison to Britain’s population of 60 million people.

Meanwhile, you might think a Supreme Court judge is somewhat more important than a senior civil servant, and they are, but not financially. When it comes down to where it really matters, a civil service secretary (general level one) is paid almost €23,000 more.

The Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector has appointed the Hayes Group to examine these salaries, although politicians are not expected to be reviewed this time.

Don’t worry, though, they are financially well provided for by us, the taxpayers. In May they got their fourth pay rise, which means their basic is €90,770 climbing to €93,667 after six years and to €96,560 after 10. Senators are roughly €16,000 behind them.

That’s just for starters. Add to the salaries all those special allowances and expenses and you have an idea what the shortest sitting parliament in the civilised world costs. (They recently had to adjourn the Dáil because they hadn’t enough to talk about, and the very next day, without raising an eyebrow, they awarded themselves extra holidays at Christmas.)

It might strike you that with just somewhat more than 100 salaries to deal with, you would imagine that the review body with the long name could manage it alone. But no, they had to appoint specialists who will report back to the review body, which will report on the report. That means the review body can always blame the specialists when they increase those salaries.

Can you see the bobs going any other way but up? Neither can I, especially when the list of luminaries contains the Garda Commissioner, Supreme and High Court judges, senior civil and public servants, a few medical consultants and the odd local authority manager.

In any case, the review body consists of six people. Five of them are business types and one other is a workers’ member of the Labour Court. No contest.

They are not going to recommend — God forbid — a decrease. The very least the individuals can expect is a standstill, and I personally could put up with standing still at between €150,000 and €200,000.

They are on their current bloated salaries by virtue of an interim review in the middle of last year, as the last full-blown review was carried out in 2000. Then, God love them, we could only afford an increase of 30% for some of them, so after six years of waiting, you can be sure that they will get something similar, especially because the lifestyle they have come to enjoy has to be maintained in the most inflation-hit country in Europe.

IN the meantime, the country’s workers can look forward to a pay rise of 10% over 27 months.

And where is benchmarking in all of this?

I was under the impression that benchmarking was to cover all civil and public servants but obviously the people concerned are above it, or else they’re having the best of both worlds.

In May, civil service employees got a 2.5% increase across the board, as part of a review under the last pay agreement, Sustaining Progress. It was paid because the Civil Service Performance Verification Group and the Justice and Equality Sector Performance Verification Group decided our civil servants were paragons of virtue, and they deserved it.

I honestly don’t know whether all that verification involved one, two or three bodies, or indeed the entire civil service, but the sooner somebody sets up a journalists’ verification body, the better.

I don’t care what it’s called and it can have a title longer than the civil servants’, or no title, just as long as there’s money in it.

Better still, we — anybody — should seek parity with TDs because they simply don’t need verification. They get the increases automatically. Not only did they get the 2.5% in line with the civil servants, but in the past 18 months they have received three hikes under Sustaining Progress and one under benchmarking.

The Taoiseach and his ministers, who earn at least €204,020 as well as perks, are not entitled to the full benchmarking, but they have an in-built way around this.

They got two extra pay hikes because of a special pay award to public servants who did not qualify for benchmarking — despite the fact they received the benchmarking rise on their salaries as TDs. They are apparently entitled to this cosy little arrangement because of the millions they waste through things like e-voting, PPARs and a litany of other foolishness.

Between now and next year’s general election, promises will undo the purse strings, no matter what Finance Minister Brian Cowen says, because they will not want to lose the cushy earner they have.

Just remember how empty some of the previous election promises were.