Unnecessary budget cuts deflect attention from politicians’ pay

It is difficult to understand how or why any group of intelligent, socially responsible politicians would choose, among myriad options open to them, to impose the kind of cruel, mean and totally unnecessary cuts in the recent budget.

Their reward was to receive the odium of the entire nation, achieving the status of being as equally despised as their predecessors.

The cynics among us would say, whatever about the usual spin and rhetoric, that this was a scam, a stroke in the best tradition of the masters of strokes, Fianna Fail.

Clearly the only logical conclusion to explain the perverse motivation is that these unnecessary cuts were simply a smoke screen, a devious diversionary tactic. By focusing national attention on these cuts against the poor and the most vulnerable, despite the oft claimed mantra that ‘everything was on the table’, the following real cancers in Irish society were neatly sidestepped: Attention was diverted from the outrageous and unsustainable pay, expenses, perks and unpaid for and unfunded pensions of current politicians, including the President, Taoiseach, ministers and senior civil servants.

The indecent, unfunded and gross pensions paid to the retired Fianna Fáil and other politicians didn’t warrant a mention, apart from the feeble acceptance from Michael Noonan that he was helpless to do anything about them.

The political failure, nearly five years after the banking collapse, is that no serious investigation has been initiated and no accountability has been established. The bankers, politicians and civil servants responsible for our awful plight instead have been rewarded with lavish pensions and pay-offs.

The cancer of the Croke Park deal is possibly the greatest scam of all, protecting the highly paid and pensioned ‘social partners’.

The more cynical among us would say that the tactic was mainly to protected the pensions of the ‘grey haired cabal of millionaires’ in cabinet, who, if they last the pace, will exit the scene like their predecessors, to luxuriate on extraordinary pensions for the rest of their lives.

To paraphrase Pat Rabbitte, that’s what one tends to do in politics. Sad, but true.

John Leahy

Wilton Road

Cork