People are right to praise Lenihan's Budget as a brave attempt to arrest the freefalling fiscal crisis, but I'm surprised they didn't mention how Lenihan sold the pass on public service pensioners.
There is little point in tackling the structural deficit without including these people, many of whom 'retired' in their 40s or early 50s on incredibly generous pensions, only to start second careers. These are not little old ladies sparing the coal!
The fact that Lenihan has made radical changes to the pension rules for new entrants to the public service is an implied admission that the previous rules were nothing but a sham. If I recall the figures correctly, Ireland is facing a public sector pension bill of some €100 billion by 2030. That is not only unsustainable, it is a scandalous imposition on our future workers, thanks to the uncosted and fraudulent populism of a series of dreadful governments in our recent past. Worse still, is the well-founded impression that public service pensions were spared only because retired ministers and politicians would be caught as well.
Talleyrand could have been referring to the Dail when he said of the Bourbons, "They have forgotten nothing, and learned nothing." What a pity our politicians have once again added their usual dollop of cynicism to a vital measure of national policy.
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