Ms Patricia King:

The Croke Park agreement is there, yet for the past two and a half years people at managerial level have been coming up with these proposals. They are doing so under section 518 of the Croke Park agreement, and we had to respond accordingly under that. We have been expected to utilise the procedures in that agreement to deal with the issue and that is basically what we have done.

The issue of taking money from people over and above the pay cuts has been going on since day one of the agreement. However, there is little commentary on that and few people want to hear about it. I have been pretty vocal on this repeatedly because it is a common feature or practice. It happens in the health sector in the support grades, in catering, in portering and in security. Wherever there is regular rostered overtime, all the managerial groups have decided this is easy pickings and have gone after it. People have had their wages adjusted downwards big time in those grades, over and above the 14%. That is a fact.

The more money that is taken from these people's pockets, the more difficult the situation will be for Robert Watt, the Secretary General of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, who issued this paper list of the allowances the Department wanted to remove without negotiating, consulting or informing anybody in advance. Anybody who looks at that list will notice very few people on high pay receive these allowances. This is another case of having a go at low-paid people. Whatever the shoe allowance is, for example, it is an allowance for people who are on a maximum of €500 a week. We have a large membership in the support grades of the health sector and local authorities and the biggest problem the management of these sectors have with us is that our view is that the well is dry. They have already taken whatever can be taken from these people, but now they are nominating another lot of moneys to come from their pockets.

There is a big problem arising. With respect, it is wider than the issues the Deputy nominated for consideration. There is a point at which it must be said there is no more to be got.