Fianna Fáil election candidate in Mayo Lisa Chambers has hit out at Fine Gael’s plan to cut the jobs of 269 civil servants based in Mayo.
“Fine Gael has pledged to slash by 33 per cent the number of civil servants in government departments across the country,” Ms Chambers said. “Under Fine Gael’s plan one third of the 808 non-industrial civil servants working in Mayo would be in danger of being axed.
“To suggest, as Fine Gael has done, that 269 jobs can be lost in Mayo through voluntary redundancy and so-called ‘wastage’ is misleading and offensive.
“Fine Gael’s savings plan doesn’t add up without compulsory redundancies. So civil servants at work in their offices in Mayo today can look around in the knowledge that every third one of them is not wanted by Fine Gael.”
“What if one in three civil servants don’t volunteer for the chop?” Chambers asked. “What will Fine Gael do then? Will Fine Gael then swing the axe whether workers like it or not and make compulsory redundancies?
“And if not, what will they cut instead to make up the shortfall in their savings plan? Will there be bigger reductions in child benefit than the €14 per month already planned? Or will they give up their pretence on taxes?”
