A chara, – Fintan O’Toole is on safe ground upbraiding Labour’s austerity enforcement policies as enslaving public interest to private benefit (through the “nationalisation of private banking debt”). His piece (Opinion, April 24th) might have had more bite had he not chosen to ignore the other private interests protected by Labour.
Large swathes of the public sector are oblivious to the fact that the Irish economy is in recession, with little or no change in the pay, terms and conditions and generous allowances by which Fianna Fáil kept them in check. The Irish public sector simply isn’t feeling the recession. The reason this is allowed to continue, is because Labour is unable to challenge the union interests. For all their talk of social solidarity, the unions are looking after the narrow self- interest of their members. If it is immoral to pay back private banking debts, it is also immoral to continue to claim pay and conditions that the country currently can’t afford, at the expense of the poor. – Is mise,
GEARÓID FITZGIBBON,
Community Worker and Siptu member,
Kenyon Street,
Nenagh,
Co Tipperary.