From the Personal to the Political - in a Winter of Discontent

I haven't blogged for weeks now and wondering why, I guess it's that I've been very busy as it's been a time of flux in a lot of ways. Swine flu vaccination has started at work and I am on the first designated team, which has been active for the past week. It is very busy and a new experience for most of us as Mass Vaccination Clinics are a rare enough occurence in Ireland. I would have encountered them overseas particularly in developing countries where they are a staple of UNICEF programmes, and are very effective public health initiatives. I may come back to this in another post.

Meanwhile, back to more personal issues. Our oldest son Shayne and his partner Jany have moved to Ireland from Spain where he has lived for the past seven and a half years. They are together for the past year and a half and are expecting their first child and our first grandchild in February!

Here they are with Migo the dog (who is in Spain until he can come here next year)

We are delighted they are going to be living in Ireland as we miss our kids when they are away even if they can drive us mad when they are around all the time. That's the dilemma of parenthood, isn't it? We spend years waiting for them to grow up so we can reclaim our exhausted suspended lives and then when they leave for college we miss them more than we imagine. The empty nest syndrome is pretty real and I suppose we won't have it for another five or six years as our daughter is only 13 - it'll be some time yet before we can go on holidays in low season to avail of cheap flights, hotels and everything.

That's if we can afford holidays in the gloom and doom that's predicted with the global recession and depression that Ireland seems headed for with the deflation that's happening - no-one is spending as everyone is terrified of what the budget will bring next month - so there is a greater problem here than in other countries.

The country's headed for a winter of discontent - the public sector is becoming increasingly militant as the government seems determined to exact its pound of flesh inequitably from the public servants who are deemed sitting ducks with secure jobs. It is true that we have better job security than in the private sector where profit drives everything, unlike services that are more nebulous to quantify financially, but it is thanks to strong trade unions that this situation prevails.

We have a government who has already hit the public sector with a pension levy averaging 7.5% since April which I wrote about here, and mileage has been cut by 25% for those of us - like me - who use our cars for our jobs. My petrol bill is increasing as the price at the pumps increases and also my service bill is enormous as I do such high mileage that my costs are no longer covered, and the wear and tear on the car is huge.


There was an Irish Congress of Trade Unions-led protest march held in a number of cities and towns yesterday - the one in Waterford attracted about 8000 from different unions whose members were off duty and could go. I was working so only there in spirit. On the 11th November there is a protest by the 24/7 Frontline Alliance to the Dáil in Dublin. This is all part of the ICTU campaign in the run-up to the Budget next month.

Frontline Services Alliance from DCTV on Vimeo.

They comprise the public sector union members who work shifts and whose premium payments are under threat of being cut or abolished as recommended by the McCarthy report, also known as the Bord Snip Nua report) which I referred to in another post. Most nurses, gardai (police), prison officers and army depend on premium payments for unsocial hours and shift allowances to bring up their generally poor basic pay. If these are cut they will be severely affected, as many have mortgages that factored in their premium and shift payments, and they are effectively considered core pay. Even though I don't qualify for these allowances as my job is 9-5, Mon-Fri, we are all showing solidarity with our hospital colleagues, as are most union members.

There is a strong perception that government and the employers bodies are trying to drive a wedge between the public and private sectors but the thing is everyone is angry that the bailouts for the banks seems to be no problem and yet people are being told they need to sacrifice and that €4.2billion must be shaved from the public pay bill and social welfare payments. We are being told to tighten our belts - even though no one is using that phrase as it has too much baggage, harking back to the Haughey days when he was enjoying a lavish lifestyle at public expense while enjoining us all to make sacrifices. That and the recent ex-Ceann Comhairle (Speaker) John O'Donoghue expenses scandal has only added fuel to that whole fire - one law for the rich and another for the proletariat - the rest of the world according to the elites .

Implementing the recommendations of the Bord Snip Nua report would be political suicide for any government and I can't see even the current Fianna Fáil/Green coalition having the stomach for it, especially since it was dissed by none other than the Tánaiste Mary Coughlan TD who seems to open her mouth only to change feet, so frequent are her gaffes; the best being the reference (in a speech to the IDA) Einstein's theory of evolution.

The next protest is the strike action planned for 24th November,; the unions are currently balloting members and we will know in the INO by midweek as our ballot closes on Monday. Most of the other unions have voted for industrial action and we will probably follow suit. No one wants to strike but we want to be fairly treated and not have to undergo further cuts in the budget while NAMA - the National Asset Management Agency - will provide safety nets for the banks which will have us indebted for years to come. Maybe we are trying hard to keep the IMF wolf from our door but there is no guarantee this will work in the long-term with the current measures. I hope that the Lisbon Treaty's ratification by the Czech Republic last week will boost European unity and enhance mutual support and cooperation - we are not like Iceland cut adrift outside the Eurozone and the EU and thankfully our recent ratification of Lisbon will ensure our place at the European table into the future.

Meanwhile, I look forward to the birth of our grandchild in 2010 and it will certainly be a light on our horizon and shorten what otherwise promises to be a winter of discontent. It will remind me to keep things in perspective and that family and friends are what matter. Although it helps to have financial security and stability, we'll get through this recession like we did before, by showing solidarity and resilience in the face of adversity.