Just noticed a piece in the Irish Times yesterday . It appears that the senior mandarins in Finance are once again to dictate the pace of top level pay across the public and civil service. In the last round of negotiations the mandarins held out to be omitted from the cap and it now looks as if they may manage the same feat again. The government had promised to cap all public salaries at around €200,000 as part of a wider programme of public service reform. To now seek to hit the pay of those on less than €10 an hour while allowing those at the top to cite contractual and legal arrangements to maintain salaries is arguably not in Ireland’s best interests. It would be interesting to see how many would end up in the High Court should the Government do as it promised.
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Irish Politics Forum 
Another totally predictable giant fudge. The totally dominant , shameless and ultimately nihilistic policy of protect, pretend, extend to the detriment of the weaker sections of society has been established as the norm in Ireland. It’s the usual protection rackets, salaries have even been increasing even though we are running record budget deficits. Strategies include because we are worth it, because we are too important, role playing, brinksmanship, game playing, stalling, obfuscating, threatening to unleash legal armageddon not to mention open blackmailing of totally and willingly craven government ministers. Not touching the “top dogs” of Irish society is now a long and hallowed tradition.
EVERYONE earning over 100,000 are highly paid and must have their salaries reviewed. Especially as 40% of these salaries must be borrowed at 5.83% over 7.5 years. http://www.independent.ie/national-news/now-600-escape-full-brunt-of-public-sector-pay-cuts-2000643.html Anyone working in the semi states should have their salaries cut so that the services they provide can be delivered to the public at efficient levels. Either we are all in this together or else we all go down together.
What happened the country these people ‘run’ ? Had to be handed over to the troika and our constitution replaced with an MOU? They have caused massive unemployment, emigration and wealth destruction the effects of which are going to last 20 years or more. If that does not warrant cuts to pay, conditions and contracts of employment then what will? If the government have to declare themselves officially, legally insolvent in order for these contracts to be null and void then that is what should happen but they are afraid of the consequences for their own “cheques”.
Truth be known, half of them should be sacked immediately but that would be too shocking much better to go cap in hand to foreigners and pile one bailout on top of another. The country they “ran” is bankrupt or as Colm McCarthy likes to say “Bust!” Get it? Obviously, they don’t want to get it and neither do a lot of people further down the pecking order who would be nervous that if the untouchables were touched I might be picked off in due course and after all the poor and sick and private sector sapp is a much easier target.
If, as we are being told daily, it is all written down clearly in the MOU then surely there are an awful lot of policy makers and financial analysts surplus to requirements. One respected commentator remarked over the weekend that the job of the Irish government now, was simply “to placate and keep the people quiet while the troika gets on with its job of austerity.”
My view, these people know, they were living high on the hog on borrowed money before the troika arrived, they are still living high on the hog of borrowed money presently and will be living high on it in the future troika or no troika. Most of them, in fact, see it as an affront to be even reminded them that their country is insolvent.
The people being screwed will have to wake up. Obviously, very few of them if any will be on this blog. It will take a few giant marches to end all this and when the end comes it will come relatively swiftly. I hate to be a doomsayer but when I wrote to the President in early 2008 warning we needed a government of national unity or we would loose our sovereignty. I was politely tut tutted and nothing was done. Ditto, she signed off on NAMA. When NAMA was framed it was obviously an ill conceived (SPV) gravy train, when the banks were bailed again, and again we were told to stop whinging and being negative, to stop talking the country down. It was all very fine to do the country down though.
All this is part of he same syndrome one that will eventually collapse the entire country. Unfortunately, the government is not being run for the benefit of the Irish people but a select few. They get in on a ruse of tackling the problems of their predecessors then quickly default on their promises. Economics as a subject is interesting, but what we have in Ireland is the economics of the sycophant. The strong dominating the weak who seem incapable of organising themselves against their twin oppressors of government and unions still joined at the hip. I include unions in this sycophantic abuse of power. Small wonder, so many people are planning their exit strategy and stealthily removing capital from the state. Anything it seems is better than propping up high earners until default.
I have to say Richard Bruton is a massive disappointment – he obviously knows intellectually that a policy aimed just at those on lower wages is wrong while not addressing the cost of living in Ireland or the cartels and fees charged by the professiona classes.
The fact he is carrying on regardless shows he does have a personal agend and I didn’t think he was that type of person when I was his Constituency Secretary for FG in DNC. He never struck me as a liberal, very much in the conservative wing, despite the jam making interest but I did think he had a degree of social awareness.
Perhaps as he has grown more out of touch the longer he has been in the ivory tower of Leinster House or he feels now he can allow his real thoughts to come through and reveal his Thatcherite agenda. You’d think a TD with East Wall and Donnycarney in his const would be more in tune with how his plans would impact the lesser paid and would understand that cutting their rates is not actually going to heal the economy.
He does come from the same class of priviedge as Osbourne/Cameron and Clegg so perhaps his agenda shouldnt’ really come as a surprise and disappointment, but it does.
Just like private business, the inside remuneration committee
I believe that there is a whole class of politicians who have ill served and ill serve the country. Who are involved in politics for the wrong reasons. Most for ego and a vaulted sense of ability and importance. In Ireland, we have far to many people clapping idiots and sociopaths on the back saying “why don’t you put yourself forward?” they do, and when they get elected we discover after a short time that they have little if anything to offer other than running constituency clinics.
The dynastic families that squat in the the Dail are good examples of the political paupers I have in mind . Not one of them were able to enunciate an ideology and unfortunately for the people the man that said he was going to “break the mold of irish politics” did not turn out to be like his uncle and what was created was little more than a life support system for disaffected FF TD’s, A a party that proved to be a far more toxic blend of the virus they originally purported to want to eradicate. The blend of political mediocrity served up across the political spectrum, know how to manipulate the system, know how to get elected, know how to work the party machinery. They can even get their hands on ministerial office, but once there they achieve that office they rarely manage to achieve any transformative long term impact.
I would describe the vast, vast majority of them as “hail fellow well met” craving social interaction and unable to leave a legacy because they simply have no ideology, they stand for nothing only empty platitudes.
This recession has really shown that, as a people, we never delivered on the principles of equality and inclusiveness set out in the declaration of independence. There would be no need for this post if we did. We betrayed our own idealists. One caveat, the revolution had within it the seeds of its own ultimate failure, the emasculation of the revolt by Rome and the catholic church. Almost all of the leaders of the rebellion were captives to religion, up to the moment they were shot. Presently, we have people who still profess to be catholic but who fanatically espouse social inequality and injustice and for whom an egalitarian society is anathema. We need a thinker, a strategist an ideologist even a dreamer, but unfortunately there is none on the horizon. Is there any Irish politician willing to sacrifice himself or herself to serve their country rather then themselves and their ridiculous parties? None one and that is why we have surrendered our sovereignty because there has not been one since Noel Browne, no relation by the way.