More on Civil Servant pay

Following on from Tuesday story on civil servant pat here's a story from the Irish Examiner.

PAY increases in the public sector are running at nearly twice the rate of inflation, figures from the Central Statistics Office show.

Average weekly earnings in the public sector rose 5.7% in the year to September 2005.

The increase is almost twice the rate of inflation and higher than the pay rises agreed under the last national wage agreement.

The story does go on to mention the pay of Gardai, prison officers and teachers. To be honest I don't really mind people like them getting paid more, they do contribute to society and if we don't get the best Gardai and teachers we are just storing up trouble for the next generation.

I'd like to have heard more about the pen pushers in each department. The people who get paid vast amounts of money to run this country and oversee the planning and construction of things like the Luas (connect the two tram lines? why would anyone want to do that?), the Port Tunnel (waterproofing? sure its underground?), the M50 (just throw in 2 lanes, sure we'll all be using flying cars in 10 years time). None of them ever get fired and they get paid vast sums of money.

But never fear, there will be another round of benchmarking, Bertie gets it as well.