The 'comfortable classes'

WorldbyStorm

February 2

Ah, the Irish Times. Some will have noted recently the following headline.

Can the comfortable classes in the public sector make the case for a better pay deal?There could hardly be a worse time, from the Government's perpsective, to try to do a public sector pay deal. The surge in taxes has created a mood that pretty much anything can be afforded

It's from a piece by Cliff Taylor on the broad economic context and the public sector pay deal. He notes that:

A large part of being in Government in Ireland now is working out how best to spend the dividend from the multinational sector for the wider benefit – and wondering how long it will last. Public servants deserve their fair share via higher pay. Up to a point. But cash needs to go, too, to expanding the size of the public sector to match the higher population – money is needed for staff, in other words, as well as higher pay. And to investing more to meet the vital infrastructural needs of the economy.

And yet, and yet, read to the very end and you will see the following:

If it all goes on compensating public servants and households generally for the inflationary losses of the last few years, then the enormously valuable and potentially transient dividend will be wasted. The lower-paid and the vulnerable need a dig out, for sure. But not the comfortable classes in the public or private sectors.

Public and Private sectors? Agree or disagree with his thesis, that is distinctly different as an argument from the one the headline writers offered.