Tag: Defence Forces (Ireland)

Unions and Opposition have a duty to act responsibly to avoid a repeat of the crash If there was one thing I thought everyone was agreed on, it’s that there is no going back to 2008. Public-sector unions have often been successful at conflating the interests of the public service with the interests of public servants. On Monday, all public-sector workers will receive a 1 per cent pay increase, the second such increase this year. Many will also have received increments, the automatic increases in salary based on length of service. So far, the Government can claim to be observing reasonable restraint on public pay. At one recent meeting in Government Buildings one senior official warned his colleagues that it was all beginning to feel a lot like 2006 again. I remember once counting the number of pay increases that Ahern had received between 2000 and 2007 and coming up with something like 25 of them. He had benefited from general public-sector pay increases, benchmarking and special reviews for higher earners in the public service. Three conditions for the surge in public-sector pay were necessary: a weak or willing government, strong unions under pressure from their members and a bulging exchequer. Our system of public and political discourse is set up to constantly demand that more money is spent on public services, tax cuts, giveaways of one kind or another.