Not all that surprising, but now the fun begins . . .

Public sector pay cuts on agenda - Ahern

....so they're serious then?

idiots. that scenario is typical of what has ruined this country in the first place, cut the salary of everyone, meaning that those in the pubklic service who arent needed keep their jobs, while those who are needed get less well rewarded, wehy dont they just remove those who are not needed and keep those who add value, thereby rewarding those who contribute and not rewarding those who dont, instead of punsihing everyone.

So 350,000 really pissed off public servants and their families awaiting FF candidates in the weeks up to the elections in June.. this is going to be fun.. lots of fun

I'm becoming convinced that FF are eventually going to have to do the right thing simply because there are no other options. So I think they'll take on the PS and I think they'll throw the developers and bankers under the bus. There's no other way to make the numbers work.

What FF want to do is make the PS pay the price (good PR at the mo). So what if the public sector don't give them electoral support, the general public is behind them dontcha know....ANDDDDDD at the same time they absolutely NEED to look after their builder buddies.

What a mess. Can you see a clerical officer in the Dept of Social Welfare take the hit, when the builder gang in Anglo get away scot free. And the Fin Reg, Anglo boss, Fas boss et al sail away into the sunset giving us all a two fingered gesture?

We live in interesting times.

I would imagine a very high proportion of public sectors workeres vote labour, I wonder what the electoral implications of this pay cut will be

That may be so in Dublin or the major cities, however, here in the west it would appear that most are fairly evenly split between FF/FG. For example in the office I work in, out of 15 people, only 2, myself included vote Labour. The rest support the above . This is replicated at Branch level of the Union, and the organiser and most of the Cmmtee. are FF.

However, what is slowly happening is the continual sniping and *************************ing about the Govt. and its policies, and people's patience is wearing thin from all parties.

Naturally enough the FG/Lab supporters are only to happy to point the finger, however the cracks are appearing to show with calls for the removal of Cowen and others being echoed by my workmates followed by calls for 'bring back Bertie', etc. etc.

The electoral implications of a pay cut for all will have an effect on FF in the elections, and furthermore, there are those of us that believe that all ways of defending ourselves if a fair resolution is not received, should include an ICTU call for a No Vote on Lisbon. So in essence, I believe that paycuts will have electoral implications.

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I think Ahern is probably trying to push Cowan into finally making a decision - is this the first sign that some at least in the cabinet realise the current drift must end? I still think they will come up with some convoluted dog's dinner of a cuts package which won't work & the whole crisis will explode again after the European elections with another supplementary budget.

You really have to stop with this talking sense. It really does addle FF brains. For a party that has been used to robbing Peter to pay Paul accepting the concept meritocracy is akin to asking Jackie Healy-Rae to speak Chinese.

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Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Winston Churchill