Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Government has claimed repeatedly that it is legally prevented from cutting the obscene pensions of former politicians and top civil servants. As we speak, however, the Government is moving to tear up an agreement made with public sector workers that was supposed to run until the middle of 2014, and is demanding further drastic cuts in pay and conditions for public sector workers who have already been hammered with cuts in their pay and conditions in the last four years.

Even before the Croke Park agreement, public sector workers lost between 15% and 20% of their pay in levies, cuts and the universal social charge. Under the Croke Park agreement, public sector workers have given back €1.5 billion in savings through redeployment, linking increments to performance, changing shift patters, reducing the pay of new entrants by 10% to 20%, cutting pensions to career average earnings, increasing the retirement age to 68, reducing numbers, supposedly by 18,000 initially but now up to 35,000, and by endless other cuts in pay, conditions and allowances. Now, on top of that the Government wants another €1 billion in cuts.

Does the Tánaiste realise the proposed cuts in premiums and allowances will mean a 10% cut in pay for nurses, firefighters, gardaí and other public servants? Does he realise the additional five hours work per week proposed for public servants is an effective pay cut of 12.8%? Does the Tánaiste not understand that tens of thousands of public sector workers are among the 180,000 who cannot pay their mortgages and who are now to be hit by €1,000 extra in interest payments per year, home taxes and water charges?

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