Straight Talking-Eamon calls it on the pension levy while civil servants decide to take action

Here is Eamon Gilmore's speech last night proposing the Labour Party's motion calling for the rejection of the Government's proposed levy on public servants. Our case has never been that public servants shouldn't contribute to the recovery of our economy, despite the fact that they had precious little to do with the mess we now find ourselves in. It is the total unfairness of the Government's remedy that Eamon highlights here.

This unfairness is why I will join the thousands of other civil servants, gárdai, nurses, prison officers and others on Saturday at the national demonstration in Dublin. We hope that many private sector workers will join us on the basis that they will be next. We must not allow this rotten Government to row back on the working conditions that our trade unions have fought for for generations.