SOME council workers would be financially better off on the dole, than continue to work with further salary reductions.

That's according to Impact's Fingal chair, Catherine Keogh, who painted the grave fiscal picture many public sector workers were now faced with.

Pay cuts and freezes have eaten into salaries and it's the younger home-owners who are especially in difficulty in the current climate.

'Obviously, the whole country is reeling with the economy,' Ms Keogh said. 'We would have a lot of people in their 20s and 30s and the people who bought their homes at peak prices.

'They're the ones who are particularly struggling. They're on relatively low incomes and they've already been hit by the pension levy and hit with all the taxes that everybody else has been hit with and they're struggling to pay mortgages.

'The salary that they got the mortgage on is looking like it's going to be slashed. You're now looking at a situation where they won't be able to pay their mortgage. 'Some of our members could actually be financially better off not working and that's no situation for any country to end up in.' Ms Keogh also spoke of the knock-on repercussions on the local economy any future wage cuts would bring, while calling on the Government to find alternative routes to change.

'Not one local business on Swords high street or in Blanchardstown wants less people working in Fingal or less people earning money,' she continued.

'That directly deflates the local economy. If we're earning less, it's only going to cause more problems, with a domino effect. Economically it makes no sense.

'People want the Government to listen, to get a good solution to get us out of this. We're more than willing to pitch in and more than willing to make changes to our work practices. But we just cannot take any more hits on their pay.'

- Robin KIELY