At least Mattie is out there batting for us. The nation can rest assured that among the denizens of the government parties, there is at least one politician who has principles. And the first principle of any backbencher is to get re-elected.

Mattie McGrath is apparently the only government TD who finds it outrageous that the cabinet is determined to push ahead with its plan to save senior civil servants from undue hardship. The issue is the rowback on paycuts for around 650 state employees who earn between €130,000 and €170,000.

Brian Lenihan has decreed that these people have suffered enough. Last February, he discontinued a bonus scheme for them that really wasn't a bonus scheme at all. It was a payment of around 10% of their salary, which all but one of them received in full each year, irrespective of how they performed.

In December's budget, Lenihan announced the implementation of a report from the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector. The report recommended a paycut of 8% to 12% for these employees, who had already lost the bonus that wasn't a bonus.

The report was commissioned in April and took the loss of the bonus into account. It concluded: "We recognise that our recommendations are severe, but consider them warranted in the light of the unprecedented circumstances being encountered.

"Those in secure jobs are privileged and should make a significant sacrifice. It is unacceptable that borrowing should be required to fund public service pay."

The rowback was announced on 23 December, when most people were preoccupied with Christmas. The cuts for senior civil servants were reduced to between 3% and 5% of salary, less than that imposed on state employees at the other end of the scale. There would also be minimum impact to the gold-plated pensions enjoyed by these people.

Prior to this, the word of the review body had been gospel in government. In 2007, the body recommended that Bertie Ahern receive an increase of €38,000 to bring his pay level to €310,000. Ahern said he had to do it, that the body was independent and he was obliged to accept its recommendation. (Later, he forewent the increase, but always maintained he was entitled to it).

Now that pay scales are heading south, the word of the review body can be ignored. The minister is refusing to act on recommendations that affect those with whom he has a close relationship.

For instance, assistant departmental secretaries are among the category which lost the so-called bonus. These men and women work extremely hard, and extremely close to their line ministers. Unlike carers, or those suffering from blindness, these people are perfectly placed for a word in the shell-like of somebody like Lenihan.

His defence of this latest effort at taking care of insiders is spurious, but the Taoiseach and Tánaiste are offering even more pathetic excuses.

On Wednesday, Cowen responded to Dáil questions about the rowback by refusing to budge. "We cannot undermine the budget," he said. "The reversing of budgetary decisions is not an option." Who's he coddin'? The definitive undermining of the budget is that which he is defending.

The previous week, his deputy, Mary Coughlan was taking the questions. Here's what she had to say. "With regard to the pay and conditions of assistant secretaries, the review body on higher level pay indicated that the bonus was indicatively part of their salary."

The charitable interpretation of that statement is that she hasn't read the report and was therefore inadvertently misleading the Dáil. Nowhere in the report is there any suggestion that the body considered the bonuses to be part of a salary. (The report is published on the Department of Finance's website).

This is the level to which our leaders have been reduced. Manipulating, spluttering nonsense, and spouting – maybe inadvertently – untruths, all to defend the indefensible. Last December's budget was grossly unfair, but at least Lenihan put some gloss on it by applying the public sector pay cuts with a modicum of fairness. That is now obliterated. Any moral fibre informing the effort to refloat a listing ship of state has been abandoned. We are back to protecting at all costs the people who really matter, and sticking it to those who don't.

Instead of fairness in cuts, the government is now intent on going after the minimum wage. The cleaners who sort out Minister Lenihan's office do so when he has gone home. They don't have the access and camaraderie with the incumbent which is obviously enjoyed by senior civil servants.

But fear not, for Mattie is on the job. McGrath is threatening to vote with Fine Gael next week when the opposition tables a motion calling for a reversal of the sweet deal. The government's carry-on offends Mattie's sense of fair play. We should be grateful for small mercies.

Back in the real world, Mattie knows that making these kind of noises does him no electoral harm. His Tipperary South constituency will most likely only return one candidate from the Fianna Fáil family at the next election. That means either he or junior minister Martin Mansergh.

Mattie has sniffed the wind, crunched the numbers. He now makes a racket about government policy every month or so. Eventually, maybe this time, maybe the next, he will de-whip himself from Fianna Fáil in an attempt to escape the mother of all hammerings for the party.

No doubt, all of this is coincidental to Mattie's solid principles. But by now boredom is setting in at the sight of a politician on the make presenting himself as a man of principle.

mclifford@tribune.ie