Strikes can’t work when coffers are empty
Threats of strikes by public servants, including nurses, teachers and gardaí, have nothing to gain. The kitty is empty. The country is broke.
What they can do is disrupt public transport, courts, planned hospital operations and remove school supervision. These are just a few of the services that we have placed in the hands of people who already walked off the job as recently as last November.
The planned series of labour withdrawals increase the risk of the International Monetary Fund replacing the decision-makers in the Department of Finance, with more drastic action on the cards. Spain, Portugal, Greece and Republic of Ireland are the hardest hit by the recession
It is too late to concentrate on who or what caused the crisis. All we can hope is that the public sector will accept the fact that the country is broke and cannot increase the outgoings to match the wishes of those who are still in jobs.
For the Government to remake the December 9th Budget would lead to disaster.
The financial deficit was not caused by the public sector workers, But they and the private sector must foot the bill. The marchers will protest that it is not fair to them. The world isn’t fair, but who says it was ever intended to be? Our borrowings are expensive, because of the risk that Ireland provides to lenders.
The public sector views are well known now to Taoiseach Cowen and Finance Minister Brian Lenihan. Further protests will hit the public that the marchers are paid to serve.
For a strike to be considered just, it should not inflict greater hardship on the public than the strikers would benefit through their action. These strikes against the public are unjust.
The policy of frugality will be with us for at least 5 years. Pay little heed to reports that property sales are rising, or that the second half of the year will see the end of the recession. We’re in it for the long haul.
Goodbye Minister Cullen
Martin Cullen, Minister for Waterford, has retired due to a bad back ailment. He held portfolio for Arts, Sport and Tourism for past two years. Prior to that he held portfolios for Transport, and later for Social and Family Affairs.
He will be best remembered for his defence of the €52 million E Voting machines. They were rated a failure due to the absence of an audit system or paper trail.
It is costing €800,000 per year to store them, until the Cabinet decides how to dispose of them. Death by drowning is a possibility.
A corporal serving in the Army in 1948 told me that he was given an order to go to the docks to collect a consignment of arms from Sweden. He found 48 Bren gun carriers - armoured vehicles that looked like small tanks - and 48 Bren guns.
It transpired that Dept of Defence offices in Parkgate Street had ordered 48 Bren guns. A query from Sweden asked to confirm whether they required Bren gun carriers. It landed on the desk of a civil servant in the Dept of Defence. He concluded that Bren guns were probably heavy and he confirmed the order for the carriers.
The media was more tolerant in those days and the Bren gun carriers were deployed to various barracks, without adverse publicity. Unfortunately for Martin Cullen, he will long be remembered as the Minister who spent €800,000 a year to store the machines that that were meant to replace what Bertie Ahern called in a Dail Debate ‘those stupid little pencils’.
Unfortunately for him, and for the country, that will be his legacy. He will be remembered for a costly mistake rather than any other political impact. Such is the calibre of our elected representatives in this government.