Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies again for their questions. If they look at pay for public servants in Ireland, whether it is in the Civil Service or the wider public service, it does compare favourably with other European countries. Of course, you have to adjust it for tax and the cost of living, but even so, public servants in Ireland are relatively well paid compared with Northern Ireland, Britain, France, Denmark or Italy. It is important that we recognise this. It is only possible because of the economic policies that have been pursued over the past decades. We would not be able to pay our public servants the way we do now if we had pursued different policies in the past ten or 20 years. They would be paid much less. They would probably be paid what public servants are paid now in Britain, Italy or other European countries.

Regarding RTÉ "talent" or stars, they are not public servants, by and large. They are self-employed and they charge fees, so they do not have the benefit of the protections of public service employees and they do not receive pensions from the State, but they do have a very tax efficient way of being remunerated, to put it that way.

On electricity prices, we do expect them to come down. We are seeing business rates coming down already and we expect to see residential rates coming down in the next few months. I am familiar with what they have done in Spain and Portugal, but I am not sure that is the right way to go. They have seen a huge increase in the use of gas in Spain and Portugal, and that has come at a cost to the governments and the taxpayers. While the electricity bill someone gets is lower, the fact that the government has to pay for so much gas has put the bill on the taxpayer in a different way. I am not sure if that is the right route.

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