A Greek tragedy - It’s time to take off the gloves

GREEK workers went on strike yesterday and brought the country’s transport system to a standstill over the government’s decision to intensify its austerity drive.

That government is trying to secure even more international aid — €8 billion this time — and save the debt-laden country from bankruptcy for another month or so and avert the social chaos that would ensue.

So spectacular are the cuts that it is hard not to have considerable sympathy for the workers even if we — most of us anyway — have had to accept a bruising fall in our own living and service standards.

Greece’s government has imposed a cut of 20% in pensions of more than €1,200 a month; any pension payment over €1,000 paid to those below 55 years of age will be reduced by 40%. while the number of civil servants to be suspended on partial pay will rise to 30,000 by the end of this year, up from an expected 20,000. After a year away from work on 60% of salary, these workers will either be transferred to other state jobs or sacked — despite the once-thought inviolable a-job-for-life guarantee.

By any standards these are severe, life-changing cuts but they were made conditional by international lenders to ensure Greece reaches deficit-reduction targets in a €110bn bailout programme and receives the €8bn due next month.

Greek government figures — and these sometimes carry a health warning — showed the 2011 deficit through to August widened by 22% to €18.9bn, more than the target of €18.1bn for the period. Greece pledged to reduce its deficit to about 7.5% of gross domestic product this year from 10.5% last year.

For Ireland, Budget 2011 forecasts a deficit of a very similar €17.7bn this year.

It may be uncomfortable to compare ourselves to Greece, uncomfortable to imagine that we might face cuts of that severity but it would be foolish to pretend that it couldn’t happen.

It is worrying though that despite the very distressing example of what can happen when things pass a tipping point, Taoiseach Kenny and his Government have yet to summon the gumption to tell various groups that privileges they once enjoyed are no longer available.

The latest example is the revelation that doctors are paid €8.25 — on top of the usual €50 fee their patient pays — to sign welfare application forms for workers entitled to sick certificates. This cost the Department of Social Protection around €30 million last year. This double payment seems entirely out of step with our times and should end more or less immediately.

Imagine what a figure like this, or even half of it, would do to increase the number of special needs teachers in our schools? Imagine how many lives might be changed if our Government was as hard-nosed with the doctors as it appears to be with the parents of children who need extra support in their schools?

Ministers may bleat about contractual obligations but, as if they didn’t know, nearly every employer in the country has had to tear up employment contracts and start again. Sooner or later payments like these will have to be tackled and this — or maybe the Bord Gáis redundancy deal — is as good a place as any to start.

Unless we do, we should not be surprised if we reach the terrible point Greece is at today. We would only have ourselves and our softly-as-you-go Government to blame.