Benchmarking out of step with economy

ECONOMICALLY, Ireland is in one hell of a mess. In the private sector, one employee is made redundant every 15 minutes, because Ireland has lost its competitive edge in the international market.

Public service employees, however, will continue to enjoy permanent, pensionable and adequately remunerative jobs, ad infinitum. Before the onset of the Celtic Tiger, the Asian Tiger had became extinct because the cost of labour in Korea and Japan become excessive. This forced the entrepreneurial moguls to transfer their industrial operations to low labour cost countries.

During the course of the Celtic Tiger progression, labour costs in Ireland became too excessive for manufacturers to bear.

Those concerns which had invested heavily in setting up production plants in Ireland folded their tents and transferred their operations to lower labour cost countries.

At the zenith of our temporary boom, public service employees orchestrated the benchmarking phenomenon, by way of which they could extort additional remuneration from taxpayers.

Benchmarking is a scam, totally devoid of justification and totally amoral. Full monetary reward accrues without extra effort. Under duress and threats of stoppages, the Government agreed to implement benchmarking to keep peace.

Without benchmarking, the billions of euro released would contribute to resolving the life and death situations in hospitals and complete the renovations of dilapidated school buildings.

Edwin Cussen,

Wilton House,

Wilton Avenue,

Bishopstown,

Cork