Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming before the committee. To pick up on the point made by Deputy Donohoe, this is a very useful process and a good reflection on the Oireachtas. A criticism of social partnership in previous years was how the Oireachtas was never allowed comment on social partnership or public sector reform and everything was done behind closed doors with announcements made with much fanfare. This is a much healthier process. While we do not make the decisions and negotiations must continue in private, we can make a positive and constructive contribution. Having the representative bodies before the committee is particularly useful and I thank them for attending.

Deputy Donohoe put his finger on it; the fact we are calling these "allowances" is the problem. Looking at allowances across the public sector and in particular with regard to the Defence Forces and the Department of Defence, they break down into three categories. One category is money reimbursed to people for expenses they incur when doing their job and once this is reasonable most people understand it. The next category is where people carry out an additional task, take on an additional responsibility or obtain an additional skill they receive an extra payment for it, and this is what we should be trying to do in the public sector and it is what is done in the private sector. There are a number of such payments to the Defence Forces and my colleagues have referred to them.

The third category is where the difficulty arises and we can broadly categorise it as "other". It is the failure of public policy to grasp the nettle of public sector pay, particularly with regard to the Defence Forces. I would go so far as to say to RACO and PDFORRA that our Defence Forces have been badly served by a breakdown in public service policy. I learned a new phrase from Mr. Howard today, "the tyranny of repercussive effects", which I may explore with him. It says a great deal about how our policy of dealing with the public sector has evolved. I take from this that we have paralysis within the public service whereby we cannot address the legitimate pay needs of some members of our Defence Forces who earn ridiculously low sums of money for fear it would have a knock-on domino effect and everyone in the public sector will be jumping up and down looking for more money. Is this the correct representation of what Mr. Howard said?