Ms Patricia King:

That is why I raise this here. Cavan County Council said it wanted to remove all overtime. We argued, and the court made a recommendation, that allowances are allowances and overtime is overtime and the two should not be tied together, and that the council should not do anything until the Government decides what it is doing in general in its review. Other local authorities had been taking a similar approach to that of Cavan County Council. They were deciding they were under huge budgetary pressure and needed to do what needed to be done for their books. Nobody disputes the fact they have significant issues with regard to their budgets. However, for the past two and a half years they have gone after these people and taken money from their pockets.

To return to the Deputy's first point, I represent these workers and deal directly with them in many cases, but I have yet to find a council worker who will tell me I should go in and tell the man in charge he can take his or her money. Chances are it is only €12, €10 or €5, but if a person is on a wage which after 40 years provides a maximum of €28,000 and someone suggests the way to save the local authority is to remove that person's €12 eating-on-site allowance, the person will not be happy about that. The reason for an eating-on-site allowance is that if one lives in place A and must get to place B to clear the drains or do whatever one is asked, there is no canteen there and no facility to make tea or go to the toilet. This is local authority work that people are asked to do. Many decades ago, we negotiated an eating-on-site allowance for such people, to try to ensure they could buy or bring the necessities with them or pay for the extra petrol they might need to drive to where the work is. In my county of Wicklow, a big county, if someone who operates from Greystones is told to do work in Glencree the next morning, that means a journey of 15 miles, with no bus service and no other way of getting there. The eating-on-site allowance must cover that. That is what it is about. Therefore, a county manager should not be able to just walk in and decide that because his budget is in difficulty, he can take that money from the worker. This causes a huge problem for the worker and we will contest that. The question may be asked as to whether this payment is core pay. We will argue strongly that it is core pay and part and parcel of what constitutes that person's wages.