Mr. Tom Geraghty:

A question was asked about people being paid less than the national minimum wage. Thankfully, I am unaware of anyone for whom we have responsibility who is paid less than his or her legal entitlement. We were asked whether we shared some of the blame. If we were responsible for any such person, some of the blame would have to attach to us.

There is no problem with people being paid less than the national minimum wage, but there is a problem with low pay in the public service. A large chunk of public servants are paid badly by any standard, but one will not read about them in the newspapers, see them on television or hear about them in public discourse. The issue has been suppressed. The narrative and view created in the public mind is that people in the public service are on a gravy train. This is not borne out by the facts.

A question was asked about the allowances' complexity. A point is worth making, but might be overlooked. All of the allowances, however they originated, went through a process before their introduction. For example, unions identified a small group of people who were doing something over and above what would normally be expected of them and they negotiated with the employer. Often, allowances are a consequence of a third party ruling that the unions' cases stood up. One cannot consolidate all of them into pay, as some are specific to people who are part of a wider group and paying the entire group for what that small number do would never be accepted. We might like it if the entire group was paid. As Ms King stated, some of these allowances might have originated as pay claims that the employer presumably did not accept, leading to a third party ruling.