This week I met a really sound young Irish family, Sean and Niamh just trying to get by on a net monthly income of €2,200 with their young daughter and another baby on the way. After paying rent and servicing some modest car loans they have just under a grand a month to keep the show on the road. Figure it out, you pay for food, heating and other essentials and that’s pretty damn tight. Last year they pulled off a remarkable feat by financing their wedding day for 60 guests leaving just five grand in outstanding debt. That meant being real clever when spending on an event that typically cost five times more during the good old days.

You couldn’t script a nicer and more careful family – or a proxy for Ireland. With Sean’s earnings depressed from the recession and with their debt approaching 71% of their net annual income, they’ve been taking steep cuts in spending to avoid catastrophe. But unlike Ireland, which is in a similar debt to income trap, they’ve avoided a brawl over what to do and where the cuts should land. Their landline is gone, so too is their pension scheme contribution and their health cover is on the table. In time Niamh may be forced to give up her car. But whatever they do Sean and Niamh stick together, pay their bills and do what’s necessary to avoid further debt and live beyond their means. Adjusting their lifestyle is reality for Sean and Niamh. Pity their clear-headedness hasn’t translated elsewhere;

Public sector union chief, David Begg, this week blamed his colleague’s failure to maintain their member costs at an unaffordable level, on a campaign of incitement to hatred in the media. This is fantasy. Pointing out the hard evidence of bloated pay rates isn’t vilification Mr Begg it’s called the right thing to do when the money is running out also known as the truth. Bad as you may need scapegoats to account for your failure to deal with reality, Mr Begg you won’t easily hang emotive labels on economists and journalists who report the facts.

Just like Sean and Niamh, Ireland is in a fight for her economic survival and cannot reposition herself for growth without first bringing costs down to match earnings. That, amongst other things, means dealing with the crazy pay premium in the public sector. But, despite the agony of pay cuts, the truth I believe has dawned on many independent minded public sector workers. The cuts, which should have been avoided for the low paid, were always inevitable and no sector can rightfully claim immunity from this crisis.

But the reason why the second national day of strike was cancelled, wasn’t because of the talks with Government, it was because it was going to end in catastrophe for union leaders. You can’t win a strike without winning public support with a just cause and Mr Begg and his colleagues didn’t have one. Just ask Sean and Niamh. The shopping surge in Newry and hollow support at the pickets told them that a second national strike was ultra high risk. Just as well because when the country roared after they proposed 12 days holidays, the game was up and power drained out of their hands like a limp garden hose.

So Mr Begg, you’re leading your members on a fantasy and you follow more strikes at your peril. In a contest between Ireland’s economic survival and your agenda there can only be one winner. Time to tell your members the truth and deal with reality. Just like Sean, Niamh and the rest of the country.

The ugly paradox of Brian Linehan’s Budget is that he has done the right thing for the country but delivered harsh medicine to a great many of her citizens especially the most vulnerable on disability and carers allowances. These cuts are shocking. He has told the ultra left that there can be no further increase in tax on work and he has nailed his colours to the mast on our international low corporation tax brand, setting the country on a path from which we can recover as tepid economic growth returns next year. There was never any real choice but to attack the structural deficit caused by our loss of competitiveness and the property burst by cutting spending. Increasing income tax would have been suicidal but some of the cuts ranging 3.5% to 4.2%  in social welfare should have been less if the crisis was tackled on time. 

The other real losers are those experiencing cuts in pay in the public sector which range from 5% for low paid to 15% to those at the top and where the Taoiseach leads the cuts with 20%. Allied to the huge switch towards progressive tax takes for those on higher pay in the last budget, the Minister has made good on his promise. Nevertheless reading the list of cuts in pay is stomach churning even though I campaigned for this route to be taken to avoid more drastic cuts in social welfare or taxing the country into economic oblivion. 

What is surprising is the extent to which low paid public sector workers are expected to contribute. Linehan should have cut heavier at the middle and higher pay to protect workers earning under €30,000. This is a potentially fatal mistake because it includes those struggling with jumbo mortgages on homes bought at the top of the cycle. Although home repossession orders are to be extended to 12 months the Government simply must do more for these families. You can’t squeeze blood out of a stone and pushing young homeowners to breaking point will foment conflict. 

Other Negatives;

• Did not precisely confirm what he will do next year and the year after.
• Made no commitment to reducing income tax as soon as practical to increase revenues
• Did not accept that FF led Governments are responsible for two thirds of this mess.
• Carbon tax will hit the most vulnerable hardest – those reliant on coal rather than kerosene. 

Positives;

• Income tax, PRSI ceilings and Social Welfare Payments to ages over 66 to remain untouched.
• Stimulus packages introduced including car scrappage, energy efficiency and R&D.
• A 50% increase in minimum tax take for tax avoiders and cash contributions from tax exiles
• Changes to Private Pensions now at last linked to reform of public sector pensions. That pensions relating to grade increases rather than inflation reduces the €108 billion pension liability mountain by 20% sums up the pension ghetto.
• A new pension contract to be introduced in the public sector has been long overdue.
• The introduction of a National Prosperity Bond – this must be inflation linked otherwise it will be highway robbery as an inflation tsunami hits after 2011.
• An independent credit refusal appeal agency for SME’s frozen out by banks.
• Investment in mental health, further training and flooding relief.
• Reversal of VAT increase madness.
• Proposals to widen the tax base to follow.
• Income tax to be simplified next year replacing the daft levy and PRSI labyrinth.

The key test is to come; 

If high and low earners, public and private workers, social welfare recipients and those overseas who invest in our Government debt buy into Linehan’s grand strategy to pull us out of the bog, this ugly budget will have been a success. But if 2010 brings a repeat of the vested interest brawl that dominated 2009 because of the leadership vacuum in the early stages of this crisis, we’re sunk. 

The public reaction to today’s cutting budget, one in a series of at least three to 2013, will determine whether or not Ireland continues as an economically independent state or is forced into a humiliating surrender to the IMF or an EU bail out.  Here’s ten things Brian Linehan must get right;

1. Tell the people the truth, outline a three year programme. Reason; So the misinformation and propaganda that has characterised self- interest group campaigns is diminished by the scale of what we must face together.
2. Create urgency and a common spirit to act together. Reason; At least a year and several billions have been lost by political cowardice and a failure to lead from the front with clear communication. When there is a leadership vacuum, people in distress will follow just about any clown who steps up to the microphone.
3. Do not raise Income Tax or PRSI any higher; Reason; It destroys the profit incentive that creates jobs. The system is already tipping over from top rates well above 50%, raise it to over 60% and revenues will collapse from less work, the black market will surge, talent will emigrate and foreign executives will go elsewhere to create jobs.
4. Deliver a multi-faceted plan that involves targeted stimulus Reason; To create wealth that grows employment. Our deficit can only be made up with real growth in wealth, cutting and taxing won’t work. Focus on energy efficiency, green energy and a cash- for- clunkers scheme for low emission cars. Lots of new 2010 cars on the road will help lift morale and boost consumer spending elsewhere.
5. Implement the pay cuts but protect public sector workers on low pay and those struggling with repossession. Reason; It’s a simple question of leadership and fairness. The Cabinet has to be seen to take the biggest cut but rates must come down to European competitor levels. Look closely at public sector resistance and the real heat is coming from the combination of levies and mortgage costs for young workers who bought at the top of the market. Implement a scheme of support for any struggling low income family being squeezed by banks that involves equity sharing, refinancing and rent back arrangements.
6. Address the tax wedge that discourages low paid jobs in favour of the dole. Reason; To avoid the biggest mistake of the 80’s. That means protecting core social welfare benefits like the old age pension but adjusting dole down by part of the deflation rate and cutting employer PRSI for new jobs. It must pay to work.
7. Do not reform private pensions without first reforming public service pensions. Reason; The pension gap is already astronomic, cut relief to 33% but tax pensions at over 50% and the private pension model will be destroyed.
8. Clamp down on remaining tax avoidance schemes favoured by the ultra high net worth and tax exiles. Reason; Anything that’s not handsomely repaying its worth must be eliminated to help create a sense of fairness.
9. Adopt Fine Gael’s insightful strategy to create economic revival by reforming and refocusing semi-states acrossenergy, broadband, water and smart metering. Reason; It’s the best thought-out strategy in town, keeps the extra borrowing needed off the mounting deficit and will create jobs in crucial sectors.
10. Outline a plan to broaden the tax base. Reason; We can’t afford our State services on Ahern’s dangerously narrow income tax model where 50% pay no income tax and most of the remainder pay the lowest rate. That means gradual widening to include more workers paying income tax but also a broadening into carbon, water and property taxes.

To Public Sector Readers;

I’ve consistently aimed my fire at Ahern and the unions who led workers up the garden path with inflated pay levels that could never be sustained when the property cycle turned. I have close friends and clients among nurses, doctors, teachers and gardai, just as I had family members and clients in the retail sector when campaigning against the Groceries Order. Throughout I have never criticised the excellence of the work done by the best in it, just the system, how much we’ve overpaid and those responsible for it. The cut today is not your fault but their legacy. It’s going to hurt, I wish it wasn’t so but it’s unavoidable now.

Dear Taoiseach 

You told us you had bottle .  What bottle?  Hard on the heels of your craven capitulation to Rome following the Murphy Report on the cover up of the mass rape of Irish Children comes news of your impending  capitulation to public sector unions.  What does it require for you to locate your famous bottle?  Does it require the threat of the resignation of your Minister for Finance or  will it require the arrival of IMF suits knocking on your bedroom doorearly some morning shuffling you off in your dressing gown and slippers to hand over the keys to Ireland’s economic independence?  This country is bankrupt mostly thanks to you and your old boss Bertie.  You didn’t stand up to them then and you’re not standing up to them now.  Instead you fedexcessive awards to a bloated public sector while hollowing out the income tax system. That was about the dumbest thing any sitting Minster for Finance could have done and you did it.  Now, faced with ruin, your response is to give them even more holidays!  Are you out of your mind?  

• The Comptroller and Auditor General reports a 50% increase in sickies since the 1980s in the civil service, arguably, the snuggest job in the public sector. 
• The average sickie over a year is 11 days and let’s talk plainly, most of these are paid holidays. 
• Just about 60% of all civil servants took sickies that’s right 6 out of every 10 ranging from 5.5 days in your own Department to 16 days in theProperty Registration Authority
• A whopping 42% of all absences were unauthorized and not supported by a doctor’s certificate. 
• Is there any reason to believe that the rest of the public sector other than dedicated frontline services are any different?
• The public sector already works 10% less hours than a normal working day in the private sector and enjoys holidays 20% to 30% longer, teachers holidays excluded.
• Just tally up the sickies, the corpulent annual leave and now the latest, a further 12 days hols and tell us that this is a sane way to manage theeconomic crisis.  

So let’s get the big breakthrough in the talks right.  Your solution for cutting public sector pay and pensions to save the economy includes giving them even more days off, these ones unpaid.  That’s right no cut in pensions or salary but a cut in services which the rest of us will pay for in delays, longer queues and potentially dangerous response times. This crisis has been characterized by much Government farce and incompetence, but this one takes the biscuit for sheer stupidity. Do you really think that anyone swallows this fudge, that the unions are capable of delivering reform? These are the same guys that erected the restrictive practices that strangled decentralization and created the monster that’s the HSE when it was formed by Health Board mergers. Now we’re being told that their reform agenda is to replace the cuts Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has insisted upon. Do you think that we’re so stupid we can’t see how this so-called deal is being done under threat and you’ve simply caved in? 

Bottle? Taoiseach, you and what remains of your cabinet,  if  you  sign off on this madness will be shown to have about as much bottle as a bunch of sea sponges waiting for  some spine to crawl up them.  Do this deal and you will go down as the Government who could only rule Bikini Bottom.  Head office The Krusty Krab.

It’s been heart breaking to watch footage of fellow citizens in distress from, what in many instances, may yet prove to be an entirely avoidable network of catastrophe . As the focus moves from the emergency of dealing with widespread flooding of newly constructed housing estates, the stark question of negligence and legal redress arises. So what should homeowners do, especially those not fully covered by insurance due to flooding exclusions or by simple lack of affordability due to financial stress?

The answer for many is to sue local authorities for negligence. Find an independent engineer who can show that local councils granted planning permission knowing that certain zoned lands were prone to a high risk of flooding and you could yet get compensation. God knows you deserve it. New housing estates built on flood plains over the past six years probably stand best chance of getting redress for hundreds of homeowners, quite literally cleaned out by the floods. That’s because the legal action would not be statute barred but even in instances where permissions were granted before 2003, claimants may be able to sue local councils if legal advisers can find a way through that barrier.

The first step is to organise a local group and fully estimate the damage caused, not just to contents but also the structural damage caused to the  outer fabric of the building and the loss of value caused as the market heavily discounts the value of your home until schemes are put in place that guarantee it will never happen again. After all would you buy a house or an apartment that could be under five feet of water every few years?

 You should appoint a suitably qualified and experienced litigator used to handling large scale compensation claims that involve taking on agencies of the State and be prepared for a long slog. As clear as night follows day, local planners will wring their hands and claim that all these instances were an Act of God or an outcome of so-called global warming. Don’t buy it for an instant.

Much of the damage may be traced back to pure incompetence in zoning lands unfit for habitation, dazzled by the huge development levies that would be generated for the local council and spurred on by competition against neighbouring authorities for plum multi-million Euro construction schemes. The awful irony is that you paid for the council’s work not just by paying your taxes but also by indirectly paying the levy which was padded into the sales price during the rising property market. A good litigator will find evidence that stress testing sites for flooding was either ignored or downplayed by local authorities sucked into the great game of the Celtic Tiger – getting a slice of the action. Don’t be shy about calling The Minster for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government as a key witness – Green leader John Gormley  is already compromised by stating that many of these zonings should never have been granted!. Rhetoric and pleas will not pass the test of time as fresh issues knock this catastrophe off the national agenda. You have a case and right on your side so don’t lie down and take it, fight them. Suing is the only way to force local authorities to take the corrective measures needed and restore the normal market value of your home. So don’t just get mad, get organised and get going.

Try debating with public sector spokespersons and you’ll get a running headache.  The mindset is quite extraordinary, one of denial of evidence, facts and consequences.  It is almost as if they have become institutionalised, incapable of seeing the world for what it is outside of their segregated box.  They deny the huge pay premium over the rest of the economy despite the ESRI reports, they deny the dangerous pay gaps compared to European competitors despite evidence from Eurostat, they deny that they have tax relief on the “pension levy” and continuously talk about a 7% pay cut, which never happened.  Then, on Tuesday, they denied that many of their members went shopping over the border despite the clear evidence coming from Newry retailers to the contrary.  Worse,  they then wrap themselves in the cloak of victimhood when challenged in the media. It’s almost impossible to engage with this mindset as the Government will earn from the current “talks”.

• The tax-the-rich slogan has been exposed as a sham as tax revenues plummet and the low threshold favoured by their unions would mean hitting married couples with ordinary jobs amongst their own ranks. This suicidal nonsense is about to be proven dramatically as the Dept for Finance is hit with a huge November refund as Ireland’s self-employed, hammered by massive cuts in earnings this year, reclaim tax overpaid last year.
• On Tuesday morning on the Pat Kenny Show two union chiefs proposed that the pay-as-you-go method of accounting for public sector pensions was just fine despite the fact that it’s illegal throughout the pensions world because it hides the truth – extra years of service and ever higher pay driven up by increments  is added to the €100 billion mountain of pension debts. This year the 3% pay increase caused by the nonsense of increments added fifteen times that number to the pension mountain. 
• The final plank from the unions is the lets-spread-the-pain strategy proposed by David Begg. This daft idea means we borrow even more, committing ever higher tax revenues to mounting deficits to protect his overpaid members. Not only is this zombie economic strategy unworkable it has not been agreed by the EU nor will it be supported by bond investors at current prices, kind of important since these are the people financing our public salaries.

What’s clear from this sorry episode is that old style unions have become an anachronism. Gains in worker’s rights from EU law meant hard liners moved into the last redoubt – the public sector where the Partnership Process encouraged a sense of omnipotence as Ahern diverted bumper property and construction revenues to meet demands for corpulent pay, allowances and sickies. Strip away all the guff about protecting those on the dole and social welfare and these people act exclusively as agents of those who pay the piper, their members. They have one sole purpose and that is to protect and increase benefits for members. They don’t care who pays. They care more about shopping in Newry.

Be quite clear the subtext to their campaign is to take the money off social welfare recipients if nothing else works. You don’t negotiate with bullies like these, you fight them and that’s precisely what the Government needs to do despite suffering from collective cowardice in the past by caving into them. At stake is Ireland’s economic independence, her international brand as an entry gate into Europe and the future of many of her children. That’s why the unions must not be let win.

There is a tsunami of inflation building up on the horizon but still most of us, rattled by the fire sale of assets and collapsing prices last year, languish in deposit accounts. Fear is the overwhelming emotion now, fed ever  more by dire statements about the public finances, job losses and the glaring vacuum in political leadership. We’re saving like never before and, on the surface, that’s good because a paltry 1% on deposit is still giving real growth above inflation of 8%. How bad is that? 

Well, very bad if you continue to try to hold the real spending power of your stash in cash and very high inflation comes next. That’s because in a short period you could lose a huge chunk of your money to inflation. So why is high inflation looking inevitable despite Ireland’s current deflationary bout and what can you do to prepare? 

• Oil prices are beginning to rocket again as global production plateaus but demand rises on economic recovery. Oil prices, having risen fivefold since 2000 to their their watermark in 2008 collapsed but are now back to $80 a barrel. Expect prices to breach $100 next year and to rise further thereafter.
• Commodity prices across the board are rising, copper, silver and gold. Short of hitting readers with a gold baseball, I’ve been shouting about gold now for four years over which time its risen from $400 per ounce to $1,145 yesterday. Silver’s relative price to gold is at very low levels and responds very strongly to inflation as well so expect silver to follow at some stage.
• The world reserve currency, the Dollar has returned to trend, that’s downwards, as the US Government turns on the printing presses to stave off a US depression and continues to follow a weak dollar policy. Meanwhile foreign buyers of US Government debt are beginning to desert the dollar as a store of value. The Indian’s just bought 8% of the world gold reserve from the IMF. It’s just the beginning. More will follow.

Whichever way you look at it, high inflation is coming next, so what should you do to prepare? Social welfare payments will be inflation adjusted if the Government wants to avoid street riots but  savers should keep no more in cash deposit than is necessary. That might mean one year’s cost of lifestyle if you’re in work or three years if you’re retired. The rest should be going into inflation-linked European Government bonds with some allocation to precious metals. Unlike common Government bonds these index-linked types move with inflation and their capital values are likely to rise as the language of inflation gains common currency next year. There are two fund providers in Ireland, Standard Life and Friends First. Gold can be acquired by investing in Perth Mint Certificates, by investing in a gold fund through a stockbroker or by investing with a life office like Zurich Life. There’s plenty of options, but, whatever you do don‘t ignore this alert and get caught napping a second time – first by the property collapse and second by inflation. 

Eddie’s book ; Energise, how to survive & prosper in the coming age of scarcity, high inflation and peak oil is available as an e-book from www.eddiehobbs.com. All profits go to the Jack & Jill Foundation.

Hard to imagine the hysteria surrounding Ireland’s odyssey at Italia 90 today but it gripped a nation struggling with low self esteem and a crippled economy and taught us that we could be better. The previous two decades had been a disaster. The economy grew at a tepid 2% per year for most of the years following our EEC membership in 1973. Emigration robbed us of our young and talented and even with that exodus, unemployment of up to 18% gripped the country destroying many rural sporting clubs. By the end of the 80’s Ireland’s per capita income was over a third below that of the UK. We were an economic basket case and the poorest country in the EU of the time.

But strangely it wasn’t the economy that got us hysterical - it was football. I couldn’t watch the England match after Gary Lineker scored and went off for a  walk in UCD to calm down. When Kevin Sheedy equalised there was an almighty roar over the capital and I nearly killed myself in the sprint home! But did the World Cup trigger Ireland’s economic revival? It would be romantic to think that it did. It was certainly a contributory factor but the heavy lifting as done elsewhere, alas. By the mid 80’s Ireland was forced to gut public spending, cut taxes, abolish agencies and reduce red tape.   Sound familiar? The top rate of income tax in 1975 was 80% and for most of the 1980’s it was well over 60%. The black economy boomed and PAYE workers were the only ones paying tax fairly simply because they didn’t have the same scope to evade tax as everyone else.  Ironically tax at over 60% is precisely what the loonies in the left now want to do to avoid public pay and pension cuts. They’ve clearly  learnt nothing from Ireland’s revival. By Italia 90 the standard rate of income tax was a crippling 35% but ten years later it was a third less and the top rate was heading for 44%. Corporation tax which stood at 40% was cut savagely to just 12.5%.

For five years following Italia 90 the Irish economy grew 5% per year and then surged to 9% per year until 2000. The Tiger had begun, bookending with an economic depression, a severe three year economic contraction that started in 2008 and will lead to an austerity programme likely to last until 2012. But this time around could qualification to South Africa herald another economic revival? It would be great to think so but unhappily things aren’t that simple. There’s the little problem of the deficit and cutting our spending to fit our shrivelled tax base. Sounds like deja vu indeed, except this time around we’ve experienced far more comfortable lifestyles so our appetite to absorb pain isn’t what it used to be. Perhaps that explains the internecine warfare about who’ll carry the tab especially from the public sector unused to the idea of reversals of fortune and wedded to the fantasy that there’s another way to maintain a pay premium of at least 20% over the private sector and European competitors.

So roll on the French and onwards to South Africa but don’t kid yourself that the Ireland’s soccer team will add much to either the economy or the tournament. In Italia 90 Ireland qualified for the first time along with Costa Rica and the UAE but scored just two goals in normal play to get to the quarter finals. We drew with Holland, England, Egypt and beat Romania after a goalless draw on a  shoot-out just about six months after Romania shot Nicolae Andruţă Ceauşescu, the darling of the European ultra left. Sure, Irish supporters added enormous fun and colour but the team did its bit to contribute to the lowest scoring World Cup ever, a tournament with just one goal every 43 minutes. They banned the back pass to the keeper after that and I’d like to think we helped there too! For what it’s worth France didn’t qualify for Italia 90 and it would be nice to think they’ll sit this one out as well.

The first working day after launching Energise on The Late Late Show, The Guardian Newspaper ran a report validating the book’s hypothesis that the IEA data was taking a “goldilocks” view of energy reserves. Energise suggests that the German Energy Watch Group, ASPO and Jeff Rubbins are right, that we’re past peak which means, according to a major US energy expert, Robert Hirsch we face 20 years of “disruption”, read runaway oil prices and sky high inflation in commodities. An insider is claiming that the IEA falsified its data. Energise covers the key 2008 IEA world oil audit in depth in a chapter in the book but now here is the link to the shock Guardian revelation;

On more positive and investor-oriented stuff  is the acquisition of Burlington Northern Sante Fe railway by Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway . I wrote Energise two years ago but delayed its launch due to the banking crisis dominating attention. In the chapter on energy efficiency investments this railway was fingered a buy – because, as oil prices rocket, US citizens will ditch their cars and lorries in favour of rail transport and freight which is precisely why Buffet is buying it. You can ignore all the patriotic guff about investing in America, Buffet is investing in peak oil – he knows it’s here too. For a Bloomberg report see here. Energise contains over 60 stocks, Exchange Traded funds and collective investments to help you grow your money despite the impending wave of inflation looming.

Three cats finally popped out of the bag this week that cannot be ignored by public sector workers.  

·         Sustaining Public Sector Remuneration at 20% to 40% above Europe and the Irish Private Sector is impossible without huge job losses. 

In his letter to the troops, Peter McLoone, Chief of IMPACT trade union representing 65,000 public and services workers, has admitted that protecting public sector remuneration can’t be achieved without wide scale job losses. To put that into perspective, the Government target of €1.3 billion in pay cuts equates to a loss of 10% of the public sector labour force. From the outset I’ve been dead against redundancies and campaigned for cuts in the artificially high rates of pay and pensions instead. But the union’s prime objective is to protect pay of its members and that excludes unemployed former public sector workers. Despite their posturing in the Partnership Process, unions cannot and do not represent the unemployed. Will they now sacrifice 30,000 fellow workers to avoid reducing their pay to European levels?

·         The “Rich” are now defined and include a working married couple in the Public Sector, to be hit with tax, levies and higher PRSI that will gobble up at least 63% of earnings above 100k.

ICTU’s Narnian economics is finally revealed. The so-called “rich” aren’t rich at all, just middle income earners. That means two married teachers or Gardai will work for the Revenue Commissioners until 3pm each day for three months to four months of the year. This, of course is nuts. Income tax receipts are about to fall off the cliff again this month as incomes nosedived across the SME sector since last year. Adding a third tax rate will simply destroy tax receipts further, kill any incentive to work longer hours, shackle entrepreneurship and swell the black economy. Surely, for any free thinking public sector worker, this centrepiece proposal from ICTU exposes it as an ideologue shorn of any basic economic competency? 

·         Assets are to be attacked, especially “Trophy Homes” like Pat Kenny’s. 

Jack O’Connor may have apologised to Pat Kenny after RTE’s Frontline programme on Monday night but it doesn’t take away the fact that the former Sinn Fein member and current ICTU president believes that accumulated assets should be attacked by the State. So watch out folks because homes, farms, art and collectibles, pension funds, saving schemes, cash deposits and just about any asset you’ve got is back in the frame despite all the taxes you’ve already paid to get them. These ultra-left ideologues also want what amounts to confiscation of assets by selective targeting of Ireland’s ultra high net worth families, large employers like Dunnes and Michael O’Leary despite the constitutional questions it would raise. So get ready to wave Michael, his wealth and his business talents off at Dublin Airport which is precisely what you would do too if you were selectively targeted by the State.

Shortly the marching begins, but ordinary public sector workers now have to ask if they are cannon fodder in an ideological battle, following an agenda that can’t be won without destroying the lives of one in ten fellow workers or by destroying the Irish economy by swinging it to the far left? Surely it’s only commonsense as soon as it’s humanly possible to cut taxes not raise them and pursue the agenda that sparked the Celtic Tiger before the last Government destroyed it? Put aside your anger and frustration for a minute and ask yourself if it is right to let the democratically unelected ideologues that dominate Irish trade unions dictate how the State is to be governed by threatening to shut it down? If you march with these people you pursue their agenda of a return to the 1980’s; taxes on modest incomes way over 60%, a flight of foreign direct investment out of Ireland with massive job losses, a huge black economy and an anti-entrepreneur culture. Our talented kids will leave in droves and not come back – would you?