The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has come out hard against nurses today by declaring that it wouldn’t be fair on taxpayers if he gave in on the nurses’ pay demands.
Speaking during Leaders’ Questions today, Varadkar came under immense pressure over the fact that 35,000 nurses will be on strike tomorrow.
“It would not be fair to taxpayers to borrow money to fund pay increases. There are good reasons why a country might borrow money, but borrowing money to fund pay increases is not good policy and only leads to pay cuts down the line. I do not want to subject anyone to that ever again,” Varadkar said.
Varadkar continued: “It needs to be fair to all public servants, other people working in the health service and other people working in other parts of the public service. If we do a special deal for one group it will not be possible to do the same deal for everyone. That just would not be affordable.”
“We need to look at the wider picture and be fair to all public servants as well. We also need to be fair to patients.”, he said.
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