Public sector pay: A need for reality check

Tom Geraghty of the Public Service Executive Union (PSEU) was complaining yesterday that his members have suffered disproportionately in losing around €483 a month as a result of pay cuts, the pension levy, and higher taxes imposed during the current recession.

Of course, he accepted that those who lost their jobs outside the public sector suffered more, but he still insists that the Government should give priority to restoring the pay and terms of employment of PSEU members before introducing any general tax cuts. How many of the PSEU lost jobs due to the recession?

Surely it is time public servants and their representatives realised that they are supposed to be working for the public, not the other way around. They are earning much more than most of the people they are employed to serve. On the whole, the people that they are supposedly serving have suffered much more.

Those who have suffered most are the cream of a generation that has been forced into exile. Public servants who forget that fact are in need of a wake-up call.