Sir, – Oh, where to start with Fintan O'Toole's latest starry-eyed missive from high up in the clouds at Irish Times HQ ("Obscene salaries encourage contempt for the simple dignity of a job well done", Opinion & Analysis, December 1st)?
I confess he caught me by surprise when he rolled out Brian Clough as the role model for honour. And yet – miraculously – I found myself nodding in agreement with him when he puffed out his chest in declaring most people want to do their jobs well and with honour.
But he sent me reeling with his statement that incentivising people is toxic, and I was finally floored with the sucker punch that an incentive makes one unworthy for one’s job.
If Fintan O’Toole spent a little time outside his cushioned existence, he would know that incentives are a tried and tested means of ensuring organisational and individual goals remain aligned for the job at hand, and in the vast, vast majority of the time, there is no dishonour in that.
His vision is a model where all employees are treated alike, regardless of talent, working in uniform fashion for the one entity, for the same reward, with one simple goal.
And that model – call it communism, call it a battery farm for chickens, call it whatever you want – is certainly not for me.– Yours, etc,
ALAN KEALY,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – For Fintan O’Toole, nostalgia clearly is what it used to be.
Week after week we read of how things are now so much worse than in the past. In his justifiable criticism of some outlandish salaries, he makes a couple of claims which do not stand up to investigation.
He starts by holding up Brian Clough, erstwhile manager of Nottingham Forest, as a paragon of principle in relation to incentivisation. Bad example. Clough was well known for taking “bungs” as part of transfer fees.
O’Toole then states that before the Thatcher/Reagan era most people wanted to do their jobs well and honourably. If that were the case, why were there so many strikes prior to that era?
The reality was that any group of workers which had any power used that power for their own good regardless of the impact on the poorer, less well-organised members of society. If Ireland had a leader like either Reagan or Thatcher, the extravagances in the public-sector payroll would have been avoided in the Celtic Tiger era.
While some of the more obnoxious salaries paid to individuals are clearly unjustified, I am sure that this is but a drop in the ocean compared to the overpayments made to politicians and senior public officials, of whom we have far too many. By concentrating on a few individuals, the media constantly ignores the greater scandal of the many on lesser but still unjustifiably high salaries and pensions. – Yours, etc,
KEVIN O’SULLIVAN,
Letterkenny,
Co Donegal.