Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

It has suited some people, including Ministers, to imply that public and private sector employees exist on separate planets and public servants were, in the insulting headline-chasing words of Minister of State, Deputy John McGuinness, "featherless but still plump State hens". The implication is that public service workers are impervious to this recession while all the pain is being felt in the private sector.

This is rubbish. Of course, public servants are not indifferent to the plight of private sector workers. In many cases, they are married to them. They are their brother, their sister, their parents, children and friends. Now, more than ever, they find themselves struggling to support a household that in many cases has suddenly found itself with only one income. The real wedge is between those who were responsible for our current mess and those who were just getting on with their lives.

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