Labour shielding civil and public servants while others feel pain

Mr Curley’s exoneration of civil and public servants from blame for dragging down our country is as self-serving as it is wrong (‘We public servants are not to blame for crisis’, Dec 4).

The civil and public servants were not, and are not, in the least bit shy or bashful in using their considerable industrial relations clout in getting our weak-livered politicians to grant them levels of pay which continue to be way out of line with those of their paymasters in the private sector, as well as with their counterparts in every other European country.

With considerable support from the hard-pressed tax-payers of Europe, the private sector in Ireland must underwrite the borrowing of billions of euro every year to continue to pay the excessive salaries and pensions of the said civil and public servants.

The lavish compensation enjoyed by our civil and public servants continues to add tens of billions to our national debt. Debt is debt, whether it arises to pay lavish compensation to civil and public servants, or to bail out bust banks.

The Labour Party in government could walk their own talk of concern for the most vulnerable in society if they were not so concerned to protect the privileged positions of Mr Curley’s civil and public servants.

It is ironic in the extreme to have a Labour Party in government which would prefer to screw the most vulnerable in society into the ground rather than tackle the most powerful vested interest in the room that is represented by the Croke Park deal — all in the national interest of course!

We are not now all paying for the sins of others as Mr Curley sees it. Civil and public servants are well cosseted from the crisis which besets the country.

The private sector will continue to pay excessive taxes and charges for the services which the civil and public provide while they and their Labour Party representatives will continue to feign concern for the most vulnerable as they blame the private sector and the previous administration for the woes of the most vulnerable.

The blindness of the civil and public servants to their part in dragging down our country with debt is truly staggering.

Beams in one’s own eyes while spotting specks in those of others takes on a whole new dimension when listening to their apologists.

Cathal Ahern

Ballsbridge

Dublin 4