Our public sector pension bill is a burden

Good and successful companies do not tolerate failures. Sadly the same cannot be said for government where staffing policy is lax. There are hundreds of useless people in the public and civil service who should have been sacked years ago.

This is the bad side of government bureaucracy and is a heavy burden on the taxpayer. In Ireland the ratio of people working in government service to that of the private sector is a way out of balance and is attracting the attention of EU counterparts especially as most retire on pensions larger than what the ordinary people earn whilst working.

The media have published the names of ten of our retired politicians who are drawing pensions of over €700,000 annually. That is €7M out of an annual budget and is paid irrespective of whether old people’s homes have to close or not.

You might remember how Bertie and Co made sure of this when they awarded themselves huge pay rises. It would be interesting to find out what is the total bill for pensions for politicians and civil servants is.

Richard Prendergast

Mondaniel

Rathcormac

Co. Cork