A low-paid public servant says ‘I have had enough’

EVERYONE has seen the huge waste in public money over the past 10 years or so... countless projects gone belly-up and over-budget. Ireland is the last place in the world that anyone in his or her right mind would set up a business unless the individual in question happened to be an artist, musician, stud farmer or in the greyhound industry.

The cost of electricity, insurance, oil and gas, petrol and diesel, rental of premises, local authority rates and PRSI are simply extortionate before we even consider the day-to-day cost of living — grocery shopping, health insurance, etc. This has been the case for many years and no one in Government refused increases to semi-state companies when they came a-begging for their executives’ top bucks.

Have the prices of electricity, gas/oil, petrol/diesel dropped lately? No — but it’s our fault for putting up with this nonsense.

The car industry is finished because of colossal VRT charges, banks refusing to give out loans (how things have changed), garages trying to maintain huge profits and the alternative vehicle market up North available at half the price. We Irish are best at giving out, complaining continuously but doing nothing... I for one have had enough.

If the dreaded household rates are reintroduced I will go jail rather than hand over one cent to a Government that looks out for itself and its rich buddies, that has spent recklessly and bailed out the most dishonest and corrupt in society.

I was 20 years old when I was offered my first 100% mortgage, no questions asked. How many bank executives were investigated/fined/fired for setting up offshore accounts for old age pensioners? Was it an 80-year-old farmer who came to the bank manager with details of his Grand Cayman account? I seriously doubt it.

So who was accountable for the evoting machines, the Dublin port tunnel, the giveaway of the Corrib gas field, the PPARS system, the Oireachtas tuck shop, the toll plazas, the Luas... the list goes on and on.

Well, I know it wasn’t me, but as a low-paid public servant I will have to suffer because of the actions of others — to pay the price to keep bankers with €3 million bonuses in jobs, the 20 junior ministers without job descriptions on salaries of €160,000 a year. The new toilet in the Ceann Comhairle’s office would pay my wages for two years. Fair, is it?

I am a 27-year-old mother of one, a clerical officer, grade three on a basic wage working full-time. I have no choice but to pay into a pension that will be worth nothing when I retire. I have no choice but to pay an A-class PRSI stamp either. I can’t afford private health insurance for my family. Last year I had my first sun holiday.

I can’t go to the bank and tell them to reduce my loans because my wages are being hit. I ain’t Bertie. I can’t wait for the June elections. Candidates be warned, rotten eggs await you.

Can Eddie Hobbs, Richard Bruton, Eamon Gilmore, Shane Ross and maybe even the radical Michael O’Leary please do a takeover?

Brains and realism are needed to get us out of this mess. The way things are now we will default within the year and no one will be accountable... except for the poor sod still working.

Patricia Deane

Gorthanedin

Castlemaine

Co Kerry