This was a better comment until it got personal and insulting.

1. The civil service is not he same as the public service. 2. The civil service is not the same as the public service. 3. The civil service is not the same as the public service.

Pat on the back Stephen, great lad, very conscientious. Many of us work extra hours for various reasons often many more than five, of our own volition, and you’re lucky you enjoy your job. Perhaps however, if that extra four of five hours was spent scrubbing excrement off the walls of public toilets you might not be so quick to expect someone else to do this for no reason other than a bunch of really rich people bought too much property and couldn’t pay for it.

It must be great to live in that middle class bubble when you don’t spend the week worrying how you’ll scrape the money together to feed your children next week, when you can hurl dogs abuse at the unemployed, the low paid and public sector workers from the safety of your office PC. Do you spent 40 hours plus a week, week after week mopping floors, driving a bus around the city, standing on a production line or is you day spent yawning in meetings as you decide how best to market your latest widget, and where to book your ski holiday this year?

As for pensions etc Stephen, you guys forfeited those rights (not perks), you made your choice when you went to work for non unionised companies, you bought into the glamorous corporate BS, don’t expect others to be so gullible.

@Elpenor Dignam So you agree, you do get a massive pension.

Not sure where you got your “facts” about me but I won’t get too offended. Your tirade is a reflection on you, not me. To answer your question I do work in an office but I have worked cleaning when I was younger and then on a production line also, for a number of years. These are 2 of the things I wrote on my cv to get me my current job. I’m proud of it too. I worked hard at those jobs. I’d have no problem being a bus driver too if I had a driving license. I’ll send you my cv if it makes you happy.

By the way, all those people who for some reason you assume I hurl abuse at (???) came from the private sector. I know plenty of these people. They’re my friends and I see them when I can, at least those who have stayed in Ireland and not gone to England or Australia or the US or New Zealand or Scandinavia. I’m sure that if the government just leave things as they are then my friends will be back in no time.

Sure I’ll go back to my middle class bubble now and you stay on the path to martyrdom.

That might be the perception but who says that perception is right? Typical, people who don’t work in the public sector casting judgement. That negative attitude certainly won’t change anything. As a teacher, I hate to say it but pensions are not great as you so put it, and no we don’t expect to get paid for everything, but it is not a 9 to 5 job, there is always work to be done, the list is endless, I could be here all night, but I don’t see why I should have to justify myself to small minded people. The only “perk” as you so call it apart from the holidays you all go on about is job satisfaction and knowing that I am educating the future generation who just might get us out of the hole we are in.

It is true that the perception of the public service is of a cosseted, pampered sector, (despite the absence of bonuses in the boom years), but despite the fact that the majority of the right-thinking population know this to be false, it served the FF government well, by making it possible to demonise them, both in the media and in budgets, and by setting the private sector against them, making significant savings while scapegoating the smallest electoral demographic possible. I hope this new government can resist the temptation to capitalise in the same way.

I’d love to know where you are getting the idea that people who have been put on short-time are taking home the same pay. Although I am still fortunate to have a full working week (6 day week BTW) I know quiet a few people who are on 3 day weeks and similar arrangements and they all seem to be struggling.

Go to taxcalc.eu and play around with the results of going from 100% of some salary to 60%. Make sure to add in the €80 weekly welfare payment. Deduct the substantial cost of working from the first result (transport, food etc). As I said I would take a 3 day week in a shot.

People in the public sector are struggling also. I know colleagues are sleeping in their cars because they can’t afford the petrol to commute. I know colleagues have had to look for leave because they haven’t the money to put petrol in their cars. I know that one colleague received a pay cheque for €35 and that was to do her for two weeks. I know that a further pay cut will result in people being forced to go into arrears with their mortgage. You see Morgan Kelly was right and the tsunami of mortgages is about to begin. So, who will plug that hole? Perhaps they will revert back to the well again with a further pay cut and send us deeper into arrears? “an Irish solution to an Irish problem”. Stupid but that’s Ireland for you.