Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the huge contribution and sacrifices that all our public servants have made. Our country would not be where it is now without that level of sacrifice. As to why we cannot restore the full amount, let us acknowledge what we are restoring at the moment. Under the Lansdowne Road agreement, by the third year of it, €840 million in wages will be restored, either through lower pension-related deduction, PRD, or an increase in wages targeted at people on low and middle incomes. Therefore, we are seeing wage restoration take place through the Lansdowne Road agreement. The Deputy asks me why we cannot deliver full wage restoration, which equates to reversing out of the FEMPI legislation and going back to pre-crisis salary levels. The answer is that money is not available to the Government to do so. He asked me earlier about fiscal space and what is available. There is €600 million available to the Government and we must balance the need for better services and more services that the country wants with our ability to properly pay people who are delivering those services. That is why the Lansdowne Road agreement is so important. We are restoring wages but we will have to do it at a rate that is affordable to the country and which ensures that we do not end up with an unaffordable wage bill in the future because when that happens, as I said in a previous hearing here, the unfunded wage increase of tomorrow is the savage wage cut of the following day. We have just come through that cycle and I do not want to see it happen again.