Marching uphill is easy, it's the let-down that hurts
SELF-interest is not always an ignoble motive but it was difficult to see any more altruistic purpose behind yesterday's Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) marches.
Union bosses pitched high-charged emotional rhetoric to touch the lowest common denominator among the tens of thousands who turned out.
David Beggs, normally a decent and reasonable man, turned up the hyperbole to make a very dubious and potentially divisive incitement.
Saying you work in the public sector is like telling someone that your grandfather was in the Black and Tans, according to the general secretary of ICTU. No, Mr Beggs: public servants are not state-licensed paramilitary murder gangs -- and nobody ever made such a monstrous analogy until you did. But neither are they a caste of untouchables whose privileges must be protected by industrial muscle at home threatening grievous bodily harm to the country's reputation abroad.
Comparing the pay and perks of the Irish public service to their counterparts in the EU shows they are among the best rewarded.
And we are way down the list when the quality of Irish public services is compared to those available in other EU countries. Just as those employed in the Irish public service are higher paid and enjoy better conditions, pensions, privileges and job security than those who work in the private sector.
That old class warlord Jack O'Connor told the rally in Dublin that the wealthy would be forced to pay their share towards correcting the public finances.
The president of SIPTU has said that he wants a hike in taxes of those earning €100,000 or more so there is no need to cut the pay of his members in the public sector.
Maybe Mr O'Connor and Mr Beggs did not notice that of some 2 million people working, 50pc of them do not pay any tax and that 400,000 of the remaining 1 million fall into the 41pc higher tax band, although with increased levies that totals around 54pc. And two-thirds of those 400,000 are double-income couples, the proverbial garda married to a nurse or teacher. For them to take up the slack to fill the hole in the Exchequer as Mr O'Connor has argued, their income tax would need to be raised to 75pc, according to tax consultant Susanne Kelly.
The ICTU marches were not as well supported as the unions had hoped -- back in February 120,000 crowded the streets in Dublin protesting the pensions levy and pay cut for public sector workers.
All still rage against the greed of bankers and the sloth of the politicians who allowed the money-changers to take over the temple of government. But, as economist Colm McCarthy said very presciently recently: "Anger is not a policy."
Trade union leaders paraded their supporters up the hill in a Grand Old Duke of York exercise yesterday, but letting down the expectations they have raised will not be so easy.
We must cut €1.3m from the public pay bill and slash public spending by €4bn in the Budget next month. Social welfare and public sector wages account for two-thirds of public spending, so painful cuts for social welfare recipients seem inevitable, too. When the pain and anger abates, it will be time for that political dish that is best eaten cold: a la carte revenge.
Irish Independent
