Attitude adjustment needed on salaries

Dear sir - In December 2012, I will be 49 years old. I am a self-employed person with 30 years of work experience since leaving school. Like many more, in those 30 years of employment I have upskilled on three different occasions to adapt to the changing work environment. If I get a reasonable run of health I would hope to use this upskilling to do about another 20 years of work and pay tax and when I retire I hope I might have enough personal savings to reflect my new situation, and possible drop in living standards. In the real world we all live in how could it be any other way - two and two will always make four and cannot make six. If on the other hand, I had left school and joined the public or civil service and progressed up the ranks, I would now be thinking of retirement on my 30 years of service with no drop of living standards. I would be considering this to be my right for this service I had done. Under present arrangements for both State employee wages and pensions this is the cosy arrangement between employer and employee in the public service with no real market forces nor indeed the 'troika' dictating the amount of public money available to foot this bill and drain on our society coppers. The question is - is this right in a country that is bankrupt and can we change this before it is too late? Should it have been the case when this country went bankrupt that all previous arrangements regarding State salaries and pensions would be null and void, and new arrangements should be made based on less tax intake, reflecting the new reality we find ourselves in. Is it right for some public or civil servants to be paid twice or even three times for doing one job in the society we live in where tax money is limited and where we are supposed to value the young and the old and the infirm? Who can or will carry the can for this bill coming out of everyday public expenditure when a large part of our young population are either unemployed or paying tax in another jurisdiction? It really is time the silent majority of Irish people - the hard working frontline staff of both the public and private sector - woke up to the fact that we are being taken for a ride and are second class citizens. If public expenditure must be reduced now it must start at the top level and real reform of the civil and public service, government ministers, heads of government departments, judges, and doctors, with a top salary of no more than €75,000 for all top public servants no matter what experience, grade or position. The simple fact is this if we as a county do not make these changes we will not have a health service, social welfare service or an education system. Let the good people of Ireland now speak as one and join together to force that attitude adjustment needed by some or many will suffer. Yours, Paddy Pryle, Athlumney, Navan.