Fairness is another perk only politicians are entitled to expect
SO WE are not, after all, in this together. Some of us, it would appear, are definitely in this for ourselves. So we’re not all making sacrifices, like cancelling family holidays without the chance of a refund or keeping our small businesses and pubs closed for another fortnight to prevent a fresh surge of the pandemic.
We’re not all foregoing our normal entitlements for the good of the country in these exceptional circumstances.
Far from it. Some of us are still busily prioritising our interests, looking after ourselves and feathering our own nests without a thought to the needs of others.
After months of urging ordinary citizens to give up their most reasonable expectations – of a holiday, a shared meal, a steady job, a family funeral – our Government has just rubbed our noses in the fact that this was strictly a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ arrangement.
Healthcare workers, bus drivers, shop assistants are all expected to accept working conditions that go far beyond the call of their normal duties, in the midst of a national crisis.
But members of Government, it seems, cannot be asked to forego a perk no matter what the emergency.
Understatement
The decision to award two ‘super junior’ ministers almost €17,000 on top of their €124,439 annual salaries has, as Paschal Donohoe conceded with heroic understatement, caused ‘great annoyance and anger’ amongst the public. Up to now, there was provision to pay the top-up to just two super juniors, or junior ministers who sit at the Cabinet table. But the new Government increased the number of super juniors to three – mainly to offset the whingeing, moaning and bed-wetting that ensues unless the available goodies are divvied up equally between the parties.
It’s a scenario most parents of small children will recognise, except most parents of small children can’t call on the taxpayer to stump up thousands of euros for extra goodies when the bag is empty. That, however, is exactly what this Government has done.
So all three super juniors are to get the €16,888 top-up because it would have been unfair, Minister Donohoe explained, to have some ministers sitting at Cabinet who were being paid less than others. Fairness, it would seem, is another one of those perks and privileges that only politicians are entitled to expect in unprecedented times.
The carers who won’t qualify for the staycation tax break don’t expect fairness. The families who won’t get refunds for cancelled holidays don’t expect fairness. The people who buried their dead, throughout the worst of the pandemic, without the comfort of mourners and who waved goodbye to loved ones through the windows of nursing homes, they didn’t expect fairness. But two super juniors, whose value to the national good is very much debatable in the first place, could not be denied their expectations at this time. Until last night. Micheal Martin, finally realising that they had appalling misjudged the public mood for such largesse, announced that ministers would take a 10% pay cut.
But in New Zealand, the muchadmired prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, and her government, as well as top public servants, took a six-month, 20% pay cut in April, reducing her own salary by about €30,000.
‘It’s about showing solidarity,’ she explained, ‘in New Zealand’s time of need.’
Solidarity, as far as our lot are concerned, is strictly for mugs. Instead, the Government had tried to deflect attention from this unconscionable pay hike by cutting the pandemic unemployment payments of recipients who went to non-Green List countries on holidays… saving probably less than what a single super junior takes in pay in a week. Not that I’ve any great sympathy for those who flout rules designed to keep the country safe at a time when they’re dependent on the taxpayer for their incomes.
Nor, indeed, for the virtue-signalling of the usual suspects lining up to condemn the cuts, regardless of the facts.
As was blindingly clear on radio yesterday, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties’ Liam Herrick didn’t seem to know the difference between the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme, which is keeping some employees in their jobs, and the PUP, an unemployment benefit which requires the recipient to be available for work.
Mollify
But, even though the thought of funding other folks’ foreign holidays to unsafe destinations might stick in the hardpressed taxpayer’s craw, it’s worth remembering that that ‘super juniors’ ministers, whose necessity in Cabinet is still a mystery, will still pocket €136,963 year.
Once again, it seems, the public purse is to be raided to keep the peace in the new coalition, and to mollify grown adults who would otherwise throw a strop if somebody else got a bigger and better bauble than they did. So much for, ‘we’re all in this together’.