Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I did make a clear reference to the Lansdowne Road agreement once I had negotiated it. It is almost exclusively about low and middle income earners. Of course, from the time we negotiated the Haddington Road agreement, it was in black and white that there would be pay restoration. That is implicit in the agreement. That is the agreement we put to the unions, that we negotiated and endorsed, that we voted on in the House and that we asked the trade unions to vote on. As it provided for pay restoration, of course I was going to implement, in full, everything to which I was a party. It was the next phase over and above what had been agreed in the agreement,as well as in the Lansdowne Road agreement which was focused on low and middle income earners. At end of the day, as I have said - this is the net point at which the Deputy is getting - she does not want those at the very top to see any pay restoration. If that is her point of view, it is a fair point to make. I am saying the majority of those high earners are medics and that unless we restore their pay, we will be unable to have a functioning public health system which would not be in anybody's interests.