Time to end poisonous sense of entitlement
This sense of entitlement is, of course, a top down national disease, and is endemic throughout politics, business, trade unions and some professions.
Despite our current travails, the unspoken truth is that we have our current President, who is a socialist and humanitarian, who feels entitled to a salary of circa €250,000 per annum plus hugely generous expenses allowances.
We have two ex-presidents, happy to take pensions of €150k per annum. The current Taoiseach, who presides over a bankrupt country, is content to be among the highest paid leaders in the world, as are his colleagues in cabinet who are the envy of their peers in the UK and Europe.
We are blessed to have five ex-taoisigh, four of whom are festooned with pensions and perks of circa €140K each, as well as myriad ex-politicians and senior civil servants on equally grotesque lifelong pensions, not to mention the huge CRC-scale golden handouts received on exiting the stage.
This unfounded, innate sense of self-worth and entitlement is funded by impoverished and ultra-compliant Paddy, who has long ago lost his sense of outrage or self-esteem. Also we must never forget that these entitlements are against a backdrop of vicious austerity policies, resulting in the most vulnerable in our society being abused and targeted for cuts and swingeing charges on a daily basis.
This cancer can only be stamped out by political leadership, courage and example, and that courage and example must come from those whom we elect to provide leadership. We were promised as much in 2011.
Sadly, neither of the Government parties or Fianna Fáil, as permanent self-interested beneficiaries of the party system, have ever shown any inclination to stop the tide and are less likely to do so in the future.
We have a glorious opportunity, for the sake of generations of our children to come, to declare our disgust loud and clear at the forthcoming elections.
