Tony McGuirk
MERSEYSIDE’S chief fire officer last night issued a public apology after branding hundreds of public sector workers as “bone idle”.
Tony McGuirk had earlier apologised to a meeting of Merseyside Fire Authority for language which he said he now “regretted”.
The authority pledged to stand behind their £200,000-a-year CFO, despite a number of calls for his resignation.
Mr McGuirk originally made the remarks to a meeting of right-wing think tank Reform, but they were re-circulated at the Trades Union Congress in Manchester on Monday, prompting fury.
Mr McGuirk had said: “We’ve got some bone idle people in the public sector. There, I said it – bone idle people.”
He added that, in a decade, Merseyside had slashed the number of firefighters from 1,550 to 850 without loss of a single station.
He advocated a tough approach to absence and sick leave, and said incentives such a draw to win a car for a 100% attendance record boosted staff moral.
