Time to grasp the public pay nettle
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WHILE the domestic and international financial storm loomed, swelled and broke, destroying jobs, lowering living standards and threatening the economic independence of this country, Irish public servants and their supposed political masters continued to behave as if there was not a cloud in the sky.
In the year to March 2009, average earnings in the public sector (excluding health) rose by 3.4pc. In the three years from March 2006 to March 2009, they rose by 12.2pc. Even now, with the effects of the financial crisis all too clear and certain to take decades to repair, civil servants continue to receive annual increments while workers in the private sector take pay cuts and face deeper cuts in the near future.
Recently, public service earnings have fallen with the imposition of the pension levy, averaging 7.5pc. But our civil servants are still the highest paid in the world -- and a staggering 40pc better off, according to one calculation, than their counterparts in the private sector.
There can be only one conclusion that accords both with justice and with the practical needs of the economy.
The report of the committee chaired by Colm McCarthy and dubbed An Bord Snip Nua is expected within days, perhaps hours. It will recommend severe cuts, amounting to €4bn or €5bn, in public spending. It will call, directly or by implication, for substantial reductions in the numbers employed in the public service. It is expected to grasp one of the most fearsome of all nettles, taxing child benefit.
In addition, it may recommend an intense review of two amorphous government departments, which between them handle sport, culture, tourism, the Gaeltacht and "community and rural affairs". This, if carried out, would be a welcome and belated step towards reform.
Public pay does not form part of the McCarthy brief. But the question cannot be ignored indefinitely. It is a large part of the huge grey mass that makes up the proverbial "elephant in the room".
In the past, it has been avoided largely for three reasons: the immense power of the top echelons in the civil service, fear of social strife, and political cowardice. The third is at once the most important and the hardest to overcome.
The Government has shown its ability to impose unpopular measures, but it will need to draw on greater reserves of courage to take the even more unpopular decisions now required. It must confront the elephant of public pay.
