Irish government ministers recieved a huge pay hike on the back on an “independent” study last week. The taoiseach recieved an increase of 38,000 euro per annum bringing his salary to a whooping 310,000! The total yearly cost of the increases to the tax payer, is set at 16 million euro.
Yet this was not the top story of the day. Conveniently a new road safety strategy which effectively put 420,000 provisional licence drivers off the road hit the airwaves on the same day. It was the media’s top story. It was the front page story the next day. The huge and unwarrent pay increases got buried in the ensuing media panic.
Is this merely a concidence? No, it quite frankly was a well thought out and brilliantly formulated plan. Bertie for all his jittering and “simple living” is earning more than the president of the United States of America! Bertie thankfully explained that the reason for this was that he did not have a publically funded palace to live in. We were all glad this was cleared up! However all this was secondary to the main story of the day, the new road safety strategy.
This story was far more newsworthy than any pay increase. It was culturally relevant to people across the country, it was completely unexpected, it was negative and guaranteed audience attention and shock. We were all watching the news, listening to the radio to hear what was going to happen next, who would say what and how would the issue be resolved.
The pay increases were a statement of fact, Bertie made a meagre defence of them and it was done. The counter attack never really got off the ground as opposition TD’s were busy trying to calm their constituents over the learner driver crisis.
And so the whole thing was orchastrated beautifully, we were thankful when our Ministers postphoned the implementation of the road safety strategy and relieved that the whole farce was sorted out. We were not angry about their pay rises, not really sure there are more important things in life, like how am I going to get to work? how will I pick up the kids? how will I survive public transport?
Didn’t they time it oh so well?!
