Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I echo what the Chairman has said. I do not believe any representative organisation or trade union appearing before the committee has anything to fear from this process. This has been a very constructive exercise in recent weeks and has performed the function of busting some of the myths about public sector allowances that have been perpetuated in recent weeks and months. I welcome the Commissioner, his colleagues and the representatives of the staff associations. I put on record our thanks to the members of the Garda Síochána for protecting the people and the State.

Approximately 108 allowances are payable to members of the Garda Síochána across all ranks with an overall cost of in excess of €214 million. More than half of the allowances are taken up by payment for work at weekends, on public holidays, etc., outside non-core hours. A quarter of the €240 million is paid for the Garda rent allowance. According to the figures we have, a total of 21.6% of a garda's pay is made up of allowances. By any measure that is quite large in the context of the relationship between basic pay and allowances. I know that overtime constitutes a large part of the pay of members of the force. As with teachers, the pay structures for gardaí are quite complex and cumbersome. They have developed in a piecemeal fashion since the foundation of the State. Representative bodies and members of the force over the years may not have been too concerned about how they were awarded provided that the money hit the bank account at the end of the week or month, which is entirely understandable. As was correctly pointed out, many of the allowances have been in force since the mid-1920s.

Many of them constitute core pay in my opinion. What efforts have been made by the representative organisations to absorb or consolidate the allowances into core pay? Were they content to continue to call the payments allowances when for all intents and purposes they constitute core pay?