Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

I am pleased to be back in the House. I explained this morning that I would be unable to be present for some of the afternoon session as I had to attend with the Taoiseach a prearranged meeting of the implementation body for the Croke Park agreement and I am afraid I could not alter the Taoiseach's schedule at short notice. It was an important meeting, but I am glad to be back in the House.

I welcome Senator Thomas Byrne's amendments because they underscore two important issues, one being high pay in the public service generally. It was a decision of the Government at its first meeting on the first night to set a standard by reducing the salary of the Taoiseach to €200,000, which for most ordinary working people is an extraordinarily high salary but which for many in the private and public sectors is modest enough. It flowed from that decision that everybody else in the public service should be below that figure. However, a considerable number were not, including senior civil servants. We have examined the matter in great detail in recent months.

One can imagine the range of individuals across all elements of the public service, including doctors, judges, senior administrators, researchers and heads of commercial semi-State bodies, all of whom are on separate pay rates. It was determined that we would set a ceiling of €200,000 in the public sector. Very generously, all Secretaries General immediately accepted a pay reduction to that level which it should be noted was voluntary. I must confess that originally I had hoped to be able to reduce incumbents' pay to that level by means of legislation and that I accepted detailed advice from the Attorney General who advised that because of the small number involved, the Financial Measures in the Public Interest Act might not be robust enough to deal with the matter because it would not be arguable in court that the sum of money necessary in the public interest and in included in the measure was too focused and it might be seen as oppressive legislation. I was very glad, therefore, when a voluntary decision was made by this cohort of public servants in a public-spirited way. These are individuals who had already been subject to a number of pay cuts previously. I want this level to apply right across all elements of the public service. There will obviously be difficulties in regard to the Judiciary. We have set out new pay scales, some of which can be confusing. We have set out a new pay scale for judges which applies the FEMPI proposals or cuts which could not be applied until now because of the constitutional prohibition on the reduction of pay rates to judges, plus 10% which is the reduction that will apply to all new incumbents from 1 January. That is the new pay rate which will apply to all newly appointed judges. If and when the people support the referendum to reduce pay, we will apply the FEMPI reductions that apply across the public service, including the pension levy, to the Judiciary which will reduce its pay. It will impact on it in exactly the same way as everyone else in the public service. I do not want to deal with judges differently to anyone else.

Incumbents who are promoted will be red circled. For example, if a High Court judge becomes a Supreme Court judge, he or she will not receive the new rate for a Supreme Court judge but will hold on to his or her incumbent rate as a High Court judge. It sounds complicated but it is fair and the same approach which applies right across the public service so that no public servant feels unduly disadvantaged.

I will refer briefly to commercial semi-State bodies. We set the ceiling at €250,000. I wanted to maintain differentials because as my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, put it - those in the greyhound fraternity might take exception to it - the chief executive of Bord na gCon should not be paid the same as the chief executive of the ESB. In 2007 the previous Government set up an analysis of the relative value of the chief executive officers of commercial semi-State companies in what was called the Hay process. It set the differentials. We have applied the same formula to the new rates, that is, the FEMPI rates plus 10%, to create a new starting rate of salaries for the chief executives of all semi-State companies. As we could not reduce the salaries of incumbents, I have asked people to take a reduction to the new rate or at least a 15% reduction. Only one individual will breach the €250,000 ceiling, the new chief executive of the ESB. These are very fair and balanced measures. One cannot ask people to pay a universal social charge from an income of €80 per week if one does not ask those at the very top to bear a proportionate part of the burden.

I am very much in favour of what the Senator said. I acknowledge that the €250,000 threshold and a threshold of €200,000 for the public service generally were announced by the previous Government but I wanted to implement them. It is part of the solidarity we will need to do very difficult things in the future. This is not the end of the process, unfortunately. We have another €3.6 billion in adjustments to make for next year's budget, which brings me to the next point.

The second part of the Senator's amendment refers to the maintenance of a published record of all purchase orders. We intend to do that. I do not know whether the Minister who was in the House earlier mentioned the launch of the website. It is an extremely important new resource but I am very glad to have it in place. I intend to have all data on current public expenditure down to subhead level on the website, www.databank.per.gov, as soon as possible and to have retrospective analysis available. I understand it currently goes back to 1994, but we will go back further. People will be able to see not only the subhead and full head expenditure thresholds but also the comparators year on year and the implications in terms of personnel growth and diminution. There will be as much data as anyone could require and it will obviate the need for many parliamentary questions. I genuinely believe that the more transparent these processes are and the more dialogue we have about them, the more we will have an understanding of our economic circumstances and the more buy-in we will have to achieve our goals. While the spirit of the Senator's amendment will be captured by the actions of this Government, I do not think it needs to be accepted.