Government hanging in for sake of the nation? Well, that’s a sick joke

SINCE I began writing a regular column I can only remember being called by the editor to justify two of them.

The first one was about a tourism report that I savaged in 1992. There were a number of idiotic statements in it.

I suppose the reason I was called in was that one of the people connected with the commissioning of the report had previously threatened to sue the newspaper on a completely unrelated matter and the editor obviously wished to ensure I had my facts right.

The news editor asked me the source of one of my statements. I had the report in my hand and I referred to a specific page and showed it to him.

He then asked another question, and I quickly flicked through the report to the relevant page.

I noticed the editor looking on in amazement. “Did you read that report?” he asked.

I was even more surprised at the question. “Of course, I did.”

“Well!” he exclaimed in wonder, as if he had never come across that before.

I was writing a weekly column so I had time to read the report but, on the day it was issued, the reporter had probably only a few hours to digest hundreds of pages and then write his account.

Frequently reporters are so tied by a deadline they do not have time to read more than a summary. It is a kind of game that politicians play.

If they don’t like what the reporters write, they accuse them of making instant judgments. If the politicians desired a considered reply, they would release the report earlier under an embargo.

If the national recovery plan had been released under an embargo, journalists would have had more time to analyse it properly. Of course, they might have savaged it to an even greater extent because it is littered with vague aspirations.

The Government had been having a particularly bad week. The Star newspaper pictured cabinet members with a bold front page headline on Tuesday calling them “USELESS GOBSHITES.” The editor had intended to call them “BASTARDS,” but someone pointed out that bastards are totally innocent and no one in his right mind would call our current government innocent.

Listening to the pathetic assertions of backbenchers and ministers that they were hanging on just to bring in the national recovery plan and the budget in the national interest was enough to gag a maggot. They have no shame; they really seem to think people are so gullible as to swallow such bilge. It was a nauseous display of contempt for public intelligence. I kept thinking of the old line, “and then I threw up!” This national recovery plan was already outdated before it was published on Wednesday. On the third page of the report there is a footnote: “The estimates of general government debt contained in this plan do not take account of any additional support to the banking system that may be part of a negotiated programme of external assistance.”

This was an obvious reference to the bailout, which is going to cost billions.

Remember Finance Minister Brian Lenihan told us in 2008 the Government was introducing “the cheapest bailout in the world so far”.

Welfare cuts and the cut in the minimum wage were highlighted in the media coverage of the plan, but there was little recognition of a real problem. We had come to the stage where our welfare policies were encouraging unemployment.

Many people found it attractive to quit their jobs and go on the dole because they would be getting as much money and could also avail of a medical card, rent allowance, along with clothing and book allowances for their children.

Some employers tell of having to put employees on a three-day week. When it came to hiring them back to work fulltime, they were not interested because — with their relief payments — they were earning as much as before and they had two extra days a week off.

This is crazy and such profligacy it is part of the reason why we are in the current mess. Of course the Government should have done something about it years ago when jobs were plentiful, but they were too busy facilitating the lunacy. People should at least recognise that something is being done about it now.

There was much comment on €1 an hour to be cut from the existing minimum wage of €8.65 an hour. These are the people at the very bottom of the scale. One would have thought that — as a means of demonstrating leadership — ordinary political prudence would have prompted those at the top to announce simultaneous cuts to their own salaries or their grossly abused perks.

The Taoiseach and his ministers did take a voluntary 10% salary cut in 2008. At the time the Taoiseach was the highest paid head of government in the EU.

In the budget on December 9, 2009, Lenihan announced that the salaries of public servants would by cut by 5% on the first €30,000, by 7.5% on the next €40,000 and by 10% on the next €55,000. At the same time he announced that social welfare recipients would face and average reduction of 4.1%. He also announced a cut of 20% in the Taoiseach’s pay and 15% in ministers’ pay.

Of course there was a bit of fancy work in that ministerial announcement because the 10% taken voluntarily the previous year was included again, so the Taoiseach’s latest cut was really just 10%, bringing his salary to €228,000 and the ministers were taking an extra 5% less, bringing their salaries down to €191,000.

THEY may have thought they did not get due credit for those cuts, but then they have been doing such a lousy job that most people probably thought they were grossly overp aid already. If they were working for a private concern, they would have been sacked long ago.

Ministers are currently arguing that no new government should change the recovery plan, as if it is so good as to be inviolable. I certainly hope the next government will get rid of the idiotic plan to introduce water meters into all private dwelling by 2014.

It is an extravagant sop to the Green party. This is not to suggest there should not be water service charges. By all means businesses should be required to have water meters, but not private houses, unless they have a swimming pool. It would be much cheaper all round to have a flat charge per home.

Are the Greens afraid somebody might get away with taking too many baths or flushing the toilets too often? If some dirty, constipated cranks wish to support the Green party or think they are using so little water that they he should be charged less than most other people, let them pay for the installation of water meters.

Charging a flat rate for dwelling houses would save money not only on the meters and their installation but also on the mass of meter readers scouring the housing estates of the country. That money not wasted could be used in tackling our financial problems rather than adding to them.