The disgraceful €35,000 pay rise given to Fine Gael Government Adviser Ciaran Conlon has prompted me to conduct a a survey of how we value our employees or even our people in this country. For instance if Ciaran Conlon is valued at €127,000 per annum for the post of Government Adviser then doesn't that mean that a Paediatric Nurse should be valued at €1,270,000 per annum? Or perhaps to save the country a fortune we could reverse that and value our Paediatric Nurse at €127,000 per annum and pay Mr Conlon €12,700? I'm going to post this Blog on Twitter and I want all Tweeters to Tweet a Profession or job to compare with Mr Conlon's job. And I want you to value that job using Mr Conlon's remuneration as a landmark amount to compare professions.
I think Mr Conlon should come clean in public and in the media to explain what this very important job consists of. Does he actively seek and find tens of thousands of jobs in Ireland? Is it that he can type fast that he's so valuable? Maybe he's good at IT? Can he make a cup of tea? Now I don't want to be unfair to Mr Conlon so I'll pose those questions to a Paediatric Nurse. Maybe we should ask Mr Conlon can he find the vein of a 2 hour old baby to set up a saline drip? Can he control life saving machinery of a gravely ill 5 year old girl? Well those and other things such as making the tea for all the little ones in the Paediatric Ward I feel is a more important job, a more important contribution to society, than Mr Conlon can ever achieve. If Mr Bruton feels he doesn't know enough about his job then he shouldn't have went up for election until he educated himself.
Now here's how I would like all you tweeters to respond to my survey. Think about a few professions to compare with Mr Conlon's. Not many people will know that there are a squad of very brave people who's job it is to keep the sewers of Dublin in working order. I leave it to your own imagination as to what these people have to do down the sewers all day preventing blockages and dealing with your human waste before going home to their families in the evening.
But there are many more important and valuable contributions to society than Government Advisers. Firemen and women. Ambulance personnel, Gardai, army personnel in the Lebanon, waste disposal officers (bin men), hospital porters etc, etc etc. But I'll leave it to tweeters to choose a job and value it in comparison to a Government Adviser at €127,000. We really do need to stop valuing a Barrister at €2 million and a hero in the army at a few thousand.
