Less than two weeks ago a major talking point in Ireland was whether civil servants should give up their long established right to a half hour break to cash their pay cheques.
This is despite the fact that the actual issuing of such pay cheques ended years ago with the introduction of the automatic funds transfer system.
The unions said that this particular (bizarre) perk would have to be the subject of some tough negotiation before any concessions could be considered.
This farce is a good indication of how far from reality most Irish people operate.
Just this weekend, as the country plunges into economic oblivion, there are still people so far removed from reality that they’re talking about the Croke Park Agreement as if it was still a realistic prospect.
As a nation, for the first time in our entire blighted history, we are about to have our collective heads shoved into a bucket of cold, hard reality.
We will be held there for about 30 seconds before being pulled out and, gasping for air and shocked with horror at the sight of reality, we will see ‘kind’ strangers shouting in our faces.
Hello, Hello, do you understand? You must stop talking and act. Do you understand? You must educate yourself on how to run a country; you must learn to take responsibility for your corruption and stupidity, do you understand?
Weakly, our gombeen leaders will mumble – Lehman Brothers…British oppression…before the heads are pushed back in the bucket.
And so it will continue until, finally, reality is forced into our tiny collective heads and we can begin the long process of creating, for the first time, a decent, accountable democracy without the contamination of corrupt, greedy and arrogant gombeen men.
I’m sorry but you’ve been sucked in by the lackey press/government/ISME etc. response/spin to the issue. The issue was never about bank time for lower-paid public servants, but the fact that this “priviledge” was tied in with the package of priviledge days in general, to be negotiated as a revision to public service conditions.
The government/senior civil servants have sought to isolate and remove the bank priviledge from this package in order to safeguard the priviledge days available to senior civil servants (at least until after Christmas), and to further demonise the lower-paid.
Not a single fellow-member of the CPSU that I have spoken to has an issue with this priviledge (or the withdrawal of it) except in terms of the above. I’d be grateful if you would re-examine this issue objectively.
Regards
Charlie Flattery