Dear Editor,
In most jobs in the private sector an employee signs a contract in relation to pay and conditions and that is that. When the contract is up, he may be offered another and, if he does not like it, his employer tells him to try somewhere else.

Then why is it that hospital consultants, who are not full time employees of the HSE, are offered months and months of negotiations, not just in relation to their own pay and conditions but in relation to the contracts of future consultants?

If they were full time employees of the HSE, I could understand these long, drawn out talks, but at this stage I am inclined to think that they are being treated as 'special'. Surely if anyone is to be treated as special in this country, it is people who are working in the manufacturing sector who have brought in the money, which allows consultants to be paid such large salaries.

The women or men who work long shifts in factories in this country are treated with distain. No one asks are those people happy? The National Wage agreement this year meant that he or she got four per cent, a rise which was taxed. They had to pay an extra PRSI increase, yet inflation increased more than four per cent.

It is time for the high salaried in this country to bow their head to the people who are paying taxes, which fund their wages.

To quote James Connolly: 'The great appear great to us only because the rest of us are on our knees.' It is time that the ordinary PAYE stood up and said enough is enough. Let's not have a two-tier wage, health or pension system in this country any longer.

Yours sincerely,
Nuala Nolan

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