IBEC wants massive cuts in the numbers employed in the public service but it has nothing to say about the mismanagement and corruption which has brought the Irish banking system to its knees.
This is the view of Labour Party president and Galway West TD Michael D Higgins who has condemned the employers group IBEC for its “entirely one-sided approach to Ireland’s economic problems”.
Dep Higgins said the revelations concerning the “mismanagement, corruption and greed which have torn Irish banking apart” - particularly the actions undertaken by former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán Fitzpatrick - should have prompted comment from IBEC. Instead, there has been a “truly remarkable level of silence”.
“This silence and inaction stands in marked contrast to IBEC’s zeal for reform with regard to the public sector, as well as those who have retired and are living on their pension,” said Dep Higgins.
“Within the past few weeks we have calls from IBEC for cuts in public service pay and massive cuts in the numbers employed in the public service, and now it has decided to target public service pensioners.”
Labour acknowledges that public sector pay must be “in the mix” in dealing with the current economic crisis, but Dep Higgins said it was “wrong and unconscionable” for public service workers and pensioners to become soft targets for the comfortable bosses in IBEC and “betrays the ideological slant” within the organisation
