Tens of thousands of angry people took to the streets last Friday afternoon to argue against change instead of demanding it: they want things to remain the same, at least as they apply to them.

The union bosses who led the charge would deny this, claiming that the protest was to push the agenda of change being championed by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), a 10-point plan for economic recovery as an alternative to what the government is preparing in December’s budget. The planned one-day strike later this month is being justified on the same basis.

I wonder, though, how many of those who protested on Friday have given detailed thought to what’s in the plan that Ictu claims union members are supporting. How many have examined it, to see how it might or might not actually work, rather than just seeing it as a form of protection for their own position? How many people, laden down with personal debt and worried as to how those debts will be repaid, believe that massive borrowing by the state over a longer time frame, as suggested by the unions, will ease rather than prolong the pain?

I think the overriding concern of many of the protesters was simply to protect what they have in terms of the pay and conditions they enjoy if they work in the public sector. And who can blame them? Nobody wants to give up what they have, especially when it is already less than it used to be.

Public-sector workers are angry because they feel they are being victimised for the failings of others. Many argue, with good reason, that they do difficult and important jobs but they are undervalued and unappreciated. They feel they didn’t share the benefits of the boom and are now being singled out for worse treatment than others are experiencing.

They feel there is a deliberate attempt to vilify them, stoked up by the private sector and a government that wants to divide and conquer. I know this because of the hundreds of text messages and e-mails I receive each day, many of which outline genuine examples of how hard it is for people to survive on low public-service salaries.

Others complain bitterly about the questions I ask on The Last Word when I seek information about relative pay rates between the private and public sectors, about CSO and ESRI figures on pay differences, about the effect of benchmarking, about working hours and conditions, about defined pension benefits, job security and the numbers of employees in certain parts of the public service.

Even asking questions — a necessary part of the process when trying to conduct debate and elicit information — is regarded by some as showing hostility or bias. The questioners are engaged in a clever and subtle form of bullying. The implication is that the private sector must accept that there is nothing wrong with the public sector and that the cost of the essential role it carries out cannot be queried.

It is akin to the bullying we were subject to during the boom years from property developers, bankers and politicians who dismissed those who raised questions about the inflating of an economic bubble.

In those days, the way to shut up inquisitors was to accuse them of “talking down the economy”. Bertie Ahern, the former taoiseach, went so far as to suggest that those people who suffered negative thoughts about the direction of the economy should “commit suicide”. Most of those clowns are now trying to pretend that we have been the victim of events outside our control — the international credit crunch — rather than admitting that it was our own policies that made things worse and obliterated our defences. But they enjoyed partial success in quelling debate when it was necessary.

We need debate now about how to get out of this mess and cannot stop the flow of information because certain vested interests don’t like it. The right decisions can’t be made unless all the information is available to us. Fortunately, there are many people ready to seek out the facts as the basis for discussion and who are looking to channel their anger constructively.

Last Wednesday evening at the National Concert Hall, I shared the stage with three other authors of books about the end of the Celtic tiger era. We addressed an audience of about 1,200 people who had paid good money to see and hear us give out about how and why things went wrong.

I won’t pretend that I was able to offer answers as to how Ireland can get over its massive economic problem. But to start that process you have to know what went on and why and, in particular, who was responsible for inflating the boom and causing the bust. After all, many of those responsible for the crisis are the same people now posturing as those with the ideas or the money to get us out of it. The trade unions rank down the list of the guilty but they share some blame.

There’s an old joke about a visitor looking for directions and being told: “If you’re going there, I wouldn’t be starting from here”. So if you want to go somewhere it is advisable to have a map and know where you’re starting from. There’s no point in having the blind leading us again.

The question is how we use the anger. While it is impossible to be indifferent or uncaring, we should not despair. Yet much of the anger to date has been of the “I don’t want it to happen to me” variety, rather than about the impact on society in general. Part of this problem is that as a society we have become used to getting what we want “on tick” but the bill has arrived just as our circumstances have been reduced.

For over a decade politics and business was all about giving people what they wanted, irrespective of the long-term cost.

The “wants” of most of the people of this country were indulged by the ruling classes because being generous with other people’s money gave them more of what they wanted. Politicians got votes, businesses made more profits.

There were exceptions, of course; those who didn’t really prosper during the boom, especially those who are described as being on the margins of society. But successive Fianna Fail-led governments dished out the state’s cash in largely successful efforts to buy votes. It did this by promoting economic prosperity based on a fraudulent property boom that provided cash to pay for projects and perks from one year to the next, without much regard to the long-term consequences.

So there was extra pay for the public sector, tax reductions for everybody and improved social-welfare payments for those who are dependent. But all of this was done without bothering to ask what would happen if construction-related tax revenues disappeared, as many warned they would.

Now that the day of reckoning has arrived, we have to change. It will take time for the anger to subside. Emotion is important because it shows people care, but in the end hard-headed, intelligent and even ruthless decisions are needed, based on the reality of an annual borrowing need of over €20 billion. That requirement is at least as relevant as fairness.

matt.cooper@sunday-times.ie

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