Letters

Challenges facing new Dáil

Madam, – The real test of our new Government will be its commitment to reductions in pay levels in the public sector

Mon Mar 14 2011 - 00:00

Madam, – The real test of our new Government will be its commitment to reductions in pay levels in the public sector. All salaries paid by the public sector to permanent pensionable employees from the President downwards should not exceed €200,000. Salaries above this limit should be phased down over a period of three years. Any public servant who can obtain a better deal from the private sector should move and take his/her chances in that type of employment.

Arguments about expertise or experience should be ignored in the national interest. The same principle should apply to pensions. The full amount from a combination of all pensions paid to a person by the public sector should not exceed €100,000. Finally, I wish to confirm that I work in the public service and believe that these measures are absolutely necessary. – Yours, etc,

BRIAN PATRICK McARDLE,
Connell Drive,
Newbridge,
Co Kildare.

A chara, – While I realise the necessity of the media trying to create some optimism in the current situation I question the “momentous” (adj: of great significance) nature of the new Dáil’s first day.

I see yet another lineout of (predominantly male) grey suits with exactly the same economic solutions to a problem their ideological brothers caused over decades of criminal mismanagement of the wealth created in this country: slash and burn, austerity packages, privatisation, weakening the unions and public services, and on and on and on.

When the unsustainable reality of our previous government’s attempt to protect the vested interests of foreign gamblers and speculators finally hits home, I wonder which of this new intake of neo-conservative parish pump politicians will stand up for the rights of ordinary Irish working people? Very few, on the Government’s benches I fear. I hope the opposition voices will be clearly heard for once. – Is mise,

NICK McCALL,
Drumkeeran,
Co Leitrim.

Madam, – I am very pleased to note that two TDs from my constituency of Dublin West, namely Joan Burton and Leo Varadkar, have been elevated to the new Cabinet. However, my sense of pleasure is tempered somewhat by the realisation that I am now a gombeen voter. – Yours, etc,

BRIAN AHERN,
Meadow Copse,
Clonsilla,
Dublin 15.