Cutting public service only makes things worse

I HAVE seen a number of annoying letters recently in the Irish Examiner complaining that the public sector is too large, overpaid and unnecessary. It also annoys me to hear this artificial and forced schism between public and private sector as vested interests foment division between them so they fight over the scraps rather than unite to fight the real issues, like NAMA.

There is a case to be made that some public sector pay is hard to justify — take Prof Brendan Drumm’s proposed €70,000 bonus, for instance, a sum which seems exorbitant in the current climate and which could pay the salary of a nurse or two doing very necessary work on the front line where it matters.

However, the definition of “public sector worker” includes teachers, nurses, bus drivers and gardaí, among others.

Which of these do the complainants to your letters page think are overpaid or unnecessary?

Suppose we do “cut” — make redundant — some of these public servants? Where is it supposed they will go? It seems some people think they will just disappear into thin air, never to trouble our pockets again. It’s more likely they’ll end up on the dole along with thousands of others. So they’ll be on the state payroll once again, though this time getting paid to do nothing.

The tax load of the remaining working sector will have to increase to foot the rise in the PRSI bill.

Perhaps they’re expected to “do the patriotic thing” and emigrate. So why not just force everyone unfortunate enough to lose their job into exile?

That’d save billions. It hardly needs to be said I’m being ironic here. And what about public servants with families to feed and mortgages to pay?

It’s not all just about money. Cutting thousands of civil service jobs is no guarantee of a better economy — the opposite, I’d argue.

Incidentally, I work in the private sector.

Nick Folley

Ardcarrig

Carrigaline

Co Cork