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2009

Central Bank advocates pay cuts but escapes the axe

Date Released: 16 Dec 2009

“It is a cruel irony that the lowest paid public servants and the unemployed will endure cuts of up to 5% but the wholly owned Anglo Irish Bank, the Central Bank and the Financial Services Authority, whose failures triggered the collapse of the economy will once again avoid the consequences”, Dave Hughes, Deputy General Secretary of the Irish Nurses Organisation said today. He was speaking after a meeting of the 24/7 Frontline Services Alliance held to discuss the emergency legislation currently being pushed through the Dail.

He asked why the staff of the Financial Services Authority and the Central Bank had had their status changed as public servants by the Government in the space of nine months. Pointing to the Government’s second Emergency Bill to reduce the pay of Public Servants he said that, “Legislation which imposed the pension levy applied to the Central Bank staff but the pay cut now being imposed on all public servants will not apply to the Governor of the Central Bank, or his staff.

“It is quite extraordinary that the Governor of the Central Bank who called for cuts in public service pay managed to escape the very pay cut he advocated. If any arms of the state were more accountable for allowing the misbehaviour of banks go unchecked it was the Central Bank and the Financial Services Regulator.”





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