Don’t be harsh on public workers

THE real issues with regard to public pay are of course now lost in the oppositional bloodletting between public servants and fellow workers employed in the private sector.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his colleagues in the current Government presided over a period of so called economic boom, which at it core, fuelled the greatest percentage rise in property anywhere in the world.

Both public and private pay rose exponentially to allow the housing buying public the privilege of owning a home in a dizzying upward price spiral. The key problem generated now for both public and private workers, lets call them workers, is that we are trapped in the grip of “high equity”. Most public sector workers are still managing to service their property loans, a reality lost in the divisive and distracting national debate on pay.

I am a public sector worker who would welcome a due diligence with regard to my property portfolio, it won’t take long, it consists of one home. I have one modest salary and one mortgage.

I have a family to support, a car to maintain, health insurance to pay and a weekly grocery inventory to fulfil. My capacity to service my property loan and other liabilities has been reduced by a tax on my core business called a pension levy.

Can I ask my fellow workers in the media and elsewhere not to be too harsh on me and the vast majority of fellow small investors, or mortgage owners as we are otherwise known? We, the trapped majority, who service our loans, are now and have always been the backbone of our country.

We will not see the benefit of NAMA. We won’t be extended a golden handshake, though we are increasingly the recipients of a rather less kind hand gesture.

Declan Doyle

Knockmannon Cross

Lisdowney

Ballyragget

Co Kilkenny