‘Pay rises for highly paid civil servants a slap in the face for ordinary workers’, says Murphy

People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy has described pay rises for highly paid civil servants as a “slap in the face to ordinary workers who are seriously struggling.”

Deputy Murphy said that with inflation predicted to go over 8% soon and the cost of fuel, food, energy and rent soaring, the government must now ‘step in and prevent’ these increases from going ahead.

“This news is a slap in the face to ordinary workers who are seriously struggling,” Deputy Murphy said.

“People all over this country are being hammered with the cost-of-living crisis.

“Inflation, prices, rents, the cost of food and energy are having a seriously detrimental impact on people and their ability to get by.

“In the very same week we see the government flatly refusing to step in and help ordinary people, we can see when pay rises for very well-paid civil servants are flagged, the government shrugs its shoulders and says ‘nothing we can do’.

“This is in a context of one in three families being in energy poverty, according to the ESRI.

“If the government were to intervene and prevent these rises for well paid civil servants it could save the state €60 million which could be redirected and targeted to people in energy poverty to provide them with some relief, for example.”