Published: Wednesday, 28th April, 2010 5:00pm

The gravy train must end

The sense of social solidarity that is essential to Ireland dragging itself out of the recession is being fatally undermined by a political and business elite that acts as if nothing has changed.The Maire Geoghegan Quinn furore is the latest example of how the penny has not dropped with some people.

The news that European Commissioner Geoghegan Quinn was eventually forced to succumb to pressure to park her existing entitlement to draw a €100,000 a year TD and ministerial pension, is welcome. But the fact that she had to be forced kicking and screaming to defer these pension arrangements is an indication of the head-in-the-sand approach by our political elite. It's made all the more unpaletable given the uncertain future faced by hundreds of Quinn Insurance employees in this region.

The Geoghegan Quinn debacle is only the latest example of how the powerful and rich in our society seem to believe they are entitled to continue to behave in the same sort of carefree manner that exemplified the worst excesses of the Celtic Tiger.

Richie Boucher may have had the presence of mind to cede his pension top up when he reached the age of 55, but the fact that the bank's board, its supposed directors of public interest (placed there by the government) and more worryingly still, the Taoiseach, failed to understand the symbolism of such a top up smacks of a clear lack of political astuteness.

The Taoiseach's unwillingness to get off the fence on issues such as this is an indication that he too has not grasped the anger of the ordinary voter at the mismanagement of our economy.

Brian Cowen's default instinct may be loyalty - but it is to the ordinary Irish people whom the Fianna Fáil/Green coalition expects to shoulder the majority of the burden that he now owes his loyalty, rather than to Maire Geoghegan Quinn and Richie Boucher. Of course, if these were isolated examples one would be forgiven for not reading too much into these incidents.

But they are just the latest in an ever-growing litany of episodes. The Anglo Irish Bank pay rises; the caving in to the demands of the higher-paid public servants, the decision by the Dáil to sanction an extra week's Christmas holidays, the long drawn out political demise of ex-Ceann Comhairle John O'Donoghue ... the list goes on and on.

Kieran Mulvey, who as head of the Labour Relations Commission, who is placed at the intersection between employers and employees, can see the affect these mistakes are having on the morale and mindset of ordinary workers.

"Hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs. How can you reconcile equality, morality -- and request people to make sacrifices to make this country work -- when those who have brought us to our knees are making no sacrifices at all?"

How indeed?