Golden handshake - Ministers not sharing pain

Few are likely to be impressed by the government cutting the five Ministers of State and then paying them €€50,000 as a kind of golden handshake to ease the pain of losing office. This is not sharing the pain.

All too often the junior ministerial positions are allocated as a means of political cronyism or geographic opportunism. It is more about serving the needs of the party, than the interests of the country.

Yesterday’s cuts were not about sharing pain. They were more about the selective implementation of cuts. The real problem is that members of the government have been calling on people to cut back while they continue to pay themselves exorbitant pensions, expenses and salaries.

One of the Junior Ministers dropped, John McGuinness, had been particularly outspoken. He had the courage not only to denounce the cost of the public service but also to advocate drastic cuts.

Recently, he even had the temerity to say that the two Brians “made a bags” of the October budget. Events that followed that budget would suggest he was right in that contention, and now, it could be argued, he has been politically castrated for telling the truth.