Economic contractions by no means confined to gardaí and taxi drivers

SYMPATHY for the financial plight of others is something not easily found these days, even when it is deserved. Almost everyone seems to have their own worries.

While clearly there are some cases of gross hardship and utter inequity in suffering the consequences of the economic fall, you can’t blame people for thinking their fate is worse than anybody else’s, even when it might not be.

For example, it is easy to understand why public servants are so bitter about the pension levy because it is having major implications for their standard of living. But it is also understandable that those who have defined contribution instead of defined benefit pensions are less sympathetic (the latter having lost a fortune in recent times while the public sector outcomes remain guaranteed).