With the IMF again in town as happens every quarter these day, you are prompted to reflect on how things are going in this great little country of ours. It was heartening to see Manuel Barosso congratulating the Irish on our great strides towards fiscal equalization - with another €4bn+ cutbacks in the Christmas budget, we should be on track for the IMF target of the current deficit running at 8.7% on Gross Domestic Product. (GDP). What this translates to in ordinary man's language is a deficit of €13bn per annum.

There are three principal strands of expenditure for the Irish Government namely, Public Service pay and pensions, Social Welfare and Healthcare. Between waste, fraud and exorbitant pay scales, the low hanging fruit is all gone now, so the time has come for really tough decisions. When you have all of the key decision makers on 6 Figure salaries, you will forgive my skepticism in suggesting that these decision makers are totally insulated from the real economy, in which small businesses seek to survive and create sustainable employment.

A serious ongoing problem that we encounter in our recruitment business, is that a lot of the lower paid jobs are not being taken up by people on welfare because they will lose too many of the very generous benefits that are available. I am all for equality and social justice and have great interest in the well-being of our fellow human beings, but I find it very difficult to understand why we are not operating an American style welfare system, where the benefits last for a defined period. It would be very difficult to have long term unemployed if there was no long term benefit !

Our Social Welfare system was designed for a different era and greatly embellished during the Tiger Years, but it's time to call a halt when the generosity of the Welfare system is an impediment to employment creation. Salaries are dropping in several areas and welfare must be similarly cut, so that a situation will pertain where it is always more attractive to work that to exist on welfare.