SOME lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers and social welfare claimants feel entitled to a certain level of payment without regard to the cost to society, claims the chief executive of the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises' Association. The commandment `Thou shalt not steal' is widely ignored, said Mr Frank Mulcahy.
Two weeks ago the IME sparked off a public row by calling some unemployed people "social misfits".
Mr Mulcahy said in a statement that in the past the authoritarian nature of Irish Catholicism had meant "many people were content to abide by the laws of the church instead of developing an individual sense of right and wrong
The decline of religion had led to the widespread ignoring, through all levels of society, of the commandment `Thou shalt not steal', he went on.
"The situation is compounded when so few wrongdoers accept, believe or understand that what they are doing is wrong. They feel entitled to what they are doing.
"Beef tribunal lawyers, medical consultants, nurses and other public sector employees, tens of thousands of social welfare claimants, some categories of public servants and the major social partners feel they are entitled to draw fees, salaries and allowances or to award wage increases without regard either to proportionality or the cost to society as a whole.
"Moreover, thousands of Irish people every week are seeking someone to sue to make the quick buck.
"The case can be argued that it is only in genuine competitive businesses that income and wealth is distributed according to real needs and on merit."
Mr Mulcahy said one of the most alarming outcomes of the beef tribunal was that none of the senior counsel involved thought it wrong in any way to charge between £1,8 00 and £2,500 a day for their services.
He had little doubt that these "outrageous fees" had a bearing on already extremely well-paid medical consultants turning down a 13 per cent increase at a time of annual inflation of 1.5 per cent.
"Given the rank bad example of the two most highly-paid professions in the country, is it any wonder that nurses initially rejected a £50 million offer which the rest of us will have to pay for?"
In health, as in education, too high a proportion of total costs went on salaries and too little on service to the customer.
Mr Mulcahy also claimed that social welfare was being abused "on a grand scale". He said about 70 per cent of single mothers claiming lone parent's allowance were cohabiting and were therefore disqualified a high proportion of those claiming lone parent's allowance as deserted spouses were not deserted; and almost two thirds of elderly people claiming living alone allowances were not in fact living alone.