I take exception to that! I'm a public servant and I would put it to you I've NEVER taken a handout in my life! The dept. I work for makes money by charging clients for services. Your taxes or anyone elses taxes don't pay for me.
I do not agree with the description of public services in the line of handout.
I argue that they are on average paid more than they should when compared to their counterparts in the private sector or that they should not be there in the first place.
And in grahamo's case, if you department makes money by charging clients for services, why is it than that your department is a public sector?
It can't be an essential service because than it would be free or paid for by taxes, so it must be something where the state has again taking over things it should not. So enlighten us, where do you work and if there is private competition to it so that we can see for ourself what's going on there.
The state should concentrate on the core services and leave the rest to the private market. Despite the greed in the banking sector it works fine for other stuff ranking from waist collection (ever since bin tags came it's not longer a public service but county council gaining unfair advantage over private companies) to public transport (despite Dublin Bus using unfair methods to get a private company out of the business).
I'm happy to pay my fair share to the goverment to take care of the core services and the ones that are not as well off when they deserve it (means tested) but I right now pay over 18 Euro a day for a public service that does not work (see health care), uses unfair practices (waist collection) or is not needed at all (NCA etc.).
I'm all for paying Gardai more money to provide an efficent service, I'm all for ensuring that the public has the basic services of security, education, health and core infrastructure but do we really need 20% of the work force to be public servants which in a lot of cases use unfair practices to keep to their monopolistic services?