We should all have a vote on pay deals

THE security of the state was put under threat late last Thursday.

Not as it turns out by the first Garda strike in the history of the state, but the pay deal secured by the GRA which averted the planned industrial action and which is now the reference point for all future industrial relations negotiations.

12,500 Garda, sergeants and inspectors going on strike would have been a disaster for the country, at home and abroad, but the deal which will cost €50m is also a disaster and threatens the future well being of the state.

Be clear, there is no argument over what Gardai have gained in their negotiations, that is their right to negotiate and every individual is entitled to fair pay for their work. Gardai do a challenging and at times very dangerous job and deserve to be well paid and looked after.

No one would dispute that or their right to threaten industrial action to advance their claim, nor should they in the case of the ASTI teachers who are in the midst of their action with secondary schools across the country closed this week.

What is a disaster for us all however is the cost of the settlement and the knock on effect it is surely going to have in the industrial relations sector for the coming months.

The Lansdowne Road agreement is now seriously in jeopardy as trade unions signed up to it are examining the fine print of the Garda deal and seeing how it applies to their members.

The cost of the Garda deal has been reported as €50m, which is €50m on top of the €290m already provided for under the Lansdowne Road agreement. This €50m is not set aside in current spending plans. Where is that additional money going to come from? What spending programmes will be cut to pay for it? What new taxes will pay for it? And this is only the start of the additional public sector pay claims.

As the GRA are balloting whether to accept the proposed pay deal, perhaps we should all have a vote on whether we the public should also accept it and the consequences and cost of the deal. If that should mean a General Election, radical and all as it would be, so be it.

The pay deal on the table and the ramifications put all the progress in getting our public finances back on a safer course at risk.

As a nation we are still in debt to the tune of €200 billion and we are still spending more than we generate in taxes and some commentators have reported this week that the exposed risk from a new public sector pay deal based on the Garda deal could be upwards of £1billion.

That is money we don’t have down the back of the sofa in the Department of Finance.

If that money is needed or even a third of it is needed, those hundreds of millions, will mean less for housing under the government’s £5.5 billion plan, less progress under the proposed ten year plan for health, less gardai, nurses and teachers, more stagnation in our under funded third level education system, less money for under capital programmes and more taxes with unpopular choices in USC, corporation tax, water charges, etc, etc.

Christmas is fast approaching and children are preparing their lists, but grown ups know that you can’t always have everything you want. Choices have to be made, something has to come off the list.

The present government caved to the Garda demands, they are lacking in authority in the Dáil and are at the mercy of a Fianna Fail party playing to the populist gallery and it now looks as if the trade unions will hold them and the country to ransom.

If we as a people choose unaffordable pay for the public sector as a priority above all else and make such a decision clear in a General Election, so be it, the road to further sovereign indebtedness, starved public services and lack of investment in infrastructure will be paved before us. However at least a majority will have voted for it and we will only have ourselves to blame for the mess that will follow.