Hypocrisy laid bare

WHEN is a pay cut not really a pay cut? When it is applied to senior civil servants it seems.

Yesterday’s report — on foot of Reform and Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin’s trumpeting about pay cuts in the public and semi-state sector— that senior staff who accept voluntary 15% pay cuts can expect pensions based on their salary before the cuts were made flies in the face of logic and the reforming sense of common purpose needed to confront the crisis threatening this society.

This means that this highly paid group are facing a temporary pay cut but as soon as they retire they will enjoy a pension based on a figure at least 15% higher than their salary. Will their tax-free gratuity be based on the higher figure as well?

This cadre already dodged the bullet on earlier pay cuts. They were exempted from the full impact of an earlier round because they had lost bonus payments they had come to expect as automatic entitlements. Once again the hypocrisy and inequity destroying this society is laid bare.