The McCarthy report - Proposals just part of the solution

COLM McCARTHY’S An Bord Snip Nua was given a specific but limited task and yesterday it delivered a range of options that identified savings in public expenditure of over €5 billion, €2bn more than the target figure set by Government.

Some of the recommendations — 17,300 job cuts and a 5% across-the-board reduction in social welfare payments for instance — drew predictable and, in some instances, justified responses.

However, it must be remembered this report is no more than a set of recommendations. An Bord Snip Nua was not allowed consider the pivotal issue in our current crisis. Mr McCarthy was precluded from considering public sector pay levels so this report can only be an element in a far larger process. The report did recommend a reduction in a range of allowances but, as anyone who can use a calculator will quickly understand, much, much more needs to be done. Until such time as public sector pay — where some academics and most hospital consultants are paid twice what their counterparts in Britain are paid — is confronted we are pointlessly moving the deck chairs on a floundering, divided ship. Reassuringly though the group called for a new benchmarking examination and says this should include the possibility of pay cuts and an international comparison of pay rates.