Government should be a model of restraint

ON Thursday last, when a proposal to increase the already high salaries of senior politicians was announced, it was painfully ironic that the public were being warned simultaneously of an ESB price increase of 10%.

In recent years householders have endured considerable increases in their ESB bills increases far ahead of the so-called rate of inflation.

Many families are already experiencing financial hardship as a result of high mortgage repayments and the cost of their children's education. This ESB increase will be the last straw for some of them. The Government should have the good grace to decline their own proposed salary hike and they must convince the ESB to refrain from imposing such a punitive increase on the hard-pressed householder.