With Brian Lenihan doing the bare minimum necessary to stop the country falling into bankruptcy, this well-flagged Budget contained no surprises. Although the usual crescendo of groans predictably rose from those who always felt they had some sort of superior claim on the national income.
What came as a surprise to most people, I think, was the bizarre announcement by the Garda Representative Association (GRA) prior to the Budget, that the breakdown of the social partnership talks would be the signal for them to ballot their members on strike action.
That an organisation representing the bulk of the national police force should believe it is perfectly acceptable to contemplate withdrawing their presence from the streets, almost beggars belief. Justice Minister Dermot Ahern was right on the money when he described the plans as "an affront to democracy". Not even in the dark days of the Civil War or its Blueshirt aftermath, did the Garda ever consider such a mutiny to be conceivable.
The question is, what has changed in our society that such blatant lawbreaking by the police is something they themselves take for granted? Could it be that decades of pandering by our politicians to every interest group has now conditioned those groups to believe their every demand must be satisfied, no matter how outlandish?
From an objective viewpoint, the guards have little to complain about. With an average wage of over €1,300 per week, and an array of expenses and other perks, they are at or near the top of the public service tree - especially compared to the soldiers who often back them up in operations, who would be glad to earn half that amount. Nevertheless, they genuinely seem to believe that they are hard done by, even though some of their complaints over the last year would make a schoolchild blush.
Not for them adherence to the dictum so memorably summed up by President Calvin Coolidge of the USA, when Governor of Massachusetts during the Boston Police Strike of 1919: "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time."
If it wasn't indelicate to suggest it, I might believe their bellyaching had more to do with the fact that gardai were among the most enthusiastic of the 'buy-to-let' brigade during the property bubble - ably aided and abetted by banks who were only too glad to lend to these princes and princesses of the public sector, job-for-life set. Indeed, I know guards who openly boasted to me of their houses, apartments and ski-chalets in Bulgaria, and how they travel out there frequently to enjoy "the cheap drink".
I hate to say it, but it looks as if the public safety is now under threat because our police have been living it large and don't want to pick up the bill for their lifestyle choices. And I guess that goes for all the others who were considered a 'great risk' by the lending institutions, but who are now in negative equity and are looking for someone else to carry the can.
This is what happens when spineless populists pump-prime the part of the economy over which they have control for years on end, acting like Santa Claus to the people employed in that sector, and then invite national havoc when they are forced to take away the whisky bottle from those people.
We can't afford to put the country through this gross mismanagement again. It's hard to see the republic surviving another dose of this criminal incompetence. In the name of God, reform the system from the top down, and ensure that the people who run this country and control its financial health are held accountable for their decisions from now on. It is the very least we must do.
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