Ms Patricia King:

Without going into detail, I agree with the Chairman on the descriptions. I examined the eating on site allowance business plan, but it did not describe the allowance. The explanation offered earlier at this meeting was necessary and I will not hold up the committee by repeating it. The employer should either provide council workers with canteen facilities at every place of work or provide this allowance. The employer does not have the wherewithal to provide canteen facilities where someone can eat a lunch and have a cup of tea. In many cases, the employer does not even have the wherewithal to provide a toilet. I would argue strongly that the eating on site allowance should be maintained.

Of the list of allowances given to us by the Department's Secretary General for consideration, I will refer to two in the health sector. I do not know why the cardiac allowance is on the list. Had any degree of research been done, the Department would have realised that it was paid to emergency service workers and had already been classified as part of core pay by the Labour Court. However, the Department has included it on a list of allowances to be removed.

We were involved in discussions on the agreed transport allowance a number of decades ago. In the health service, €16 per week is provided to non-professional - this is the description - health care assistants who need to be on a ward at 7.30 a.m. during the weekends. There is no public transport, yet they are likely to need it to get to work from where they live. The transport allowance was negotiated to assist them in being at their places of work at a time when there are few ways to get there, yet it is also on the list. I will argue strongly that it should not be there and that the money should either be consolidated into pay or maintained. It is a valid payment. Like me, members might ask why it is on the list. All of the relevant conversations have yet to take place. There has been no discussion with any employer, but there has been a diktat in the form of a circular.

One cannot manage the public sector with circulars or diktats. I have picked out two allowances on the list where I believe errors were made. One allowance has already been determined as part of core pay and there is a substantive case for doing the same with the other, which affects thousands of health care assistants. Lest anybody be under any illusion about the response to this, it will be a vigorous argument in favour of continuing to pay the money to the people concerned for very valid reasons.