TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen yesterday urged public service employees to accept the Croke Park deal.
“The draft public service agreement is about the common good. It will bring transformation to the public sector which benefits all our citizens and invigorates our economy,” he said. “For our public servants, the agreement will protect jobs and deliver certainty about avoiding redundancies or the wider-scale outsourcing of public service jobs.”
Mr Cowen said the agreement offered public servants the certainty that their pay rates would not fall over the next four years and offered a mechanism for them to improve over time.
Addressing the annual Fianna Fáil 1916 Rising commemoration at Arbour Hill, Dublin, Mr Cowen described it as “win-win agreement for Ireland”. He said it underpinned stability, would help restore prosperity and, most importantly, would protect the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people.
“We all need to pull together for Ireland to again succeed,” said Mr Cowen. “And we need to ignore the foghorns of negativity who want to drown out any and every voice of reason in this country. What we need now is to maintain a unity of purpose in this country as we continue to take the decisions to secure Ireland’s future.” Mr Cowen said the State could draw inspiration from the men and women whose “noble deeds” were being commemorated yesterday.
“It is their legacy and their commitment to the common good which should inspire this generation as we all work together to get through the significant challenges we face, and to restore the prosperity that our people have worked so hard to achieve.”
Mr Cowen said everyone present was proud once again to remember the inspiring bravery and the sacrifice of the men and women of Easter Week.
“That generation fought heroically to vindicate the Irish people’s right to self-determination,” he said. “It is fitting that we should honour them and it is imperative that we never forget their confidence in the potential of an independent Ireland to deliver progress for all its citizens.”
The Taoiseach welcomed the progress in Northern Ireland. He said it was a testament to the distance the island had travelled.
“The almost daily political violence of the past has been replaced by a thriving democracy that encourages vigorous debate within the parameters of peaceful dialogue and constructive criticism,” he said. It was now widely accepted that the years of violence achieved nothing but needless bloodshed, he added.