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WHEN the Irish finance minister, Brian Lenihan, in effect cut the pay of public-sector workers earlier this year by introducing a special 7% pension levy, he confessed that Ireland’s European Union partners were amazed at the muted public reaction. There would, he said, have been riots in France. On December 9th Mr Lenihan presented his 2010 budget, inflicting even more pain by imposing steep pay cuts on public employees. This time, the response may not be quite so muted. The police are already threatening to defy a no-strike law in protest, and other public-sector workers are preparing to hold ballots on industrial action.