Martin rebuts FF TD’s ‘lazy’ public servants jibe
TAOISEACH Micheál Martin has said he does not agree with one of his party colleague’s comments about ‘lazy public servants’.
Fianna Fáil TD Marc MacSharry claimed this week that State employees were using the pandemic as an excuse to ‘lie on the couch and watch box sets’.
Mr MacSharry restated his position during a radio interview on Thursday, and said people should not have to put up with ‘mediocrity dressed up as efficiency’.
Ireland’s largest trade union Siptu called on Mr MacSharry to apologise and withdraw his remarks. The union said its members have expressed ‘anger, disappointment and hurt’ at the TD’s remarks, which they have described as ‘outrageous’.
Mr Martin was asked yesterday about Mr MacSharry’s remarks but stopped short of calling for him to withdraw them.
‘My long-standing political philosophy has always been around the need to have a strong public service and to invest in a strong public service. I don’t agree with Marc’s position on this at all,’ he said.
‘Never did the concept of a strong, independent public service emerge so tellingly than in this crisis, be it in health or right across the board. Public servants have been flat out since the beginning of the crisis, dealing with every latest iteration of it – and I think that is the strength of our public service and that it is something that we should celebrate.’
The Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants called for the remarks of Mr MacSharry – the son of former tánaiste Ray MacSharry – to be withdrawn, stating that they were ‘ill-informed and ill-considered’.
Sinn Féin housing spokesman, TD Eoin Ó Broin, said he has written to Mr Martin about the comments, which he described as ‘wrong, offensive and divisive’.