End the feather-bedding over sick leave days
But because we are so ‘sick’, we have no hope of working our way out.
Our statistics office indicates that 26m ‘sick leave’ days were claimed in 2010 and are struggling to get the figures out for 2011. Some 26m ‘sick leave’ days against a population of just over 4m and, if you include pensioners and those under 16 years, you get a good idea of the extent of the malaise.
This creates the necessity for a bloated workforce to compensate for the absenteeism and is tolerated as normal practice and encouraged by trade union officials. Our country is broke and is struggling to pay normal expenses and we have to start at the top.
The days of feather-bedding civil servants and ministers and TDs should be brought to an abrupt halt. The numbers have to be reduced to suit what we can afford and not the other way round. We should accept that normally two halves make a whole, except in the case of half-wits.
Lots of jobs could have been saved if there had been less greed and more honesty.
Is it not ironic that the perpetrators of the mess that has caused all the misery which includes job losses, cuts in wages and pensions, etc, have escaped with their loot intact?
Richard Prendergast
Rathcormac
Co Cork
