I don’t work in the public sector and I’m a big critic of big government hence advocating that public service should concentrate on the core business and pay a fair market salary to people that are employed.
Even I am sick of the bashing of public sector workers. Throwing them all into one big pile is not helpful, what needs to be done is too look at each service that is provided by public (or public owned) services and companies and then determined if there is a possibility of cutback, privatization or other methods to reduce cost.
This is a normal approach in the private sector and why should it not be done in the public sector.
I could not work in the gardai or fire service and I think that these people should earn a fair salary for doing the highly specialized job they do in the same way I should earn a fair salary for my job. Sure there needs to be adjustments for job security, extra benefits and a guaranteed pension but that are details where it needs to be worked out.
Just putting a levy onto the pensions is the wrong way. Sure I appreciate that people are now having to contribute more to a guaranteed pension especially as I have to contribute more to make up for the losses in my pension fund and even than it’s not guaranteed that I will get a good pension but that alone is not the right step.
We need to take stock of where we don’t need public service or where previous state monopoles (like electricity or gas) have run amok and how we can privatize that while ensuring that the basic right of infrastructure is delivered on.
Looking at the pension levy table, I really wonder why we have public servants earning over 150,000 € because I most certainly think that we have not enough talent in the public service that deserves that kind of payment.
We need to get away from the sense of entitlement that everybody has, we are on the verge of a collapse of the country (and if we would not be in the € zone we would be even worse off) and all we do is complain about someone trying to take away rights we gained in fat years.
And before you complain, I took a salary cut so that I still have a job, I pay more into my pension fund because I need to make up for losses and I do my part by shopping in Ireland.
Now can we maybe stop bashing workers and the public service as a total entity and concentrate on pointing out where the public service should not be in at all or where there is waste of tax payers money by the public sector.