Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There are collective agreements. We committed to a system of collective agreement within the public service. That means the trade unions negotiate for the entire public service, right across every branch. We do not have separate negotiations for some parts of the public service because they are intricately related. We cannot give increases in one area without recognising the knock-on effects in other areas. The work the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, has done recognised the issue of new entrant pay is an issue right across the public service. He set out what the cost is. Some of that cost is in education but much of it is elsewhere. He indicated he will sit down with the parties involved and discuss it. As with every issue, if extra money is to be found for one thing it has to come away from somewhere else. That is all I am saying. There will have to be give and take on all of these discussions. We cannot make any one thing an absolute requirement. That is why we have negotiations and why we have collective agreements. All of the public service unions recognise the value of these agreements to give certainty. They are making provision for pay increases. The trade unions decided in the negotiation that the lowest paid should get great priority. That is the way the structure of the agreement was - there would be increases for everyone and they would be weighted more towards the low paid. That is what they sought to negotiate. We have to accept that was the approach that was taken. It also recognised there are outstanding issues on new entrants' pay and to areas where there is difficulty recruiting. Separate processes have been established for both of those and those processes are now in place under the agreement and they are proceeding. As the Taoiseach indicated, following that report by the Minister there will be discussions and negotiations starting in the near future.