Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

The people working in the healthcare service currently will note the key difference between the Minister's approach to them and his approach to this particular position. His approach to increasing the salaries of those within the health service is in the future tense, while his approach to this particular salary is in the present tense. That is a world of difference for the lives lived by these people today.

Well in excess of 500,000 people have been made unemployed because of Covid, hundreds of thousands of people have had their incomes radically reduced across the country and families listening to this meeting at the moment are being pushed into poverty. In 2020, we had a budget deficit of €19 billion, while the excess national debt that we will accumulate this year will be approximately €35 billion. We have a national debt of €239 billion, which works out at €47,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. People will see this type of largesse in salary for these particular roles in stark contrast to their own experience. They will see a chasm that exists between their own experience and how Government is treating these particular positions. Of all the documents I have seen, none points to the fact that this country is in economic dire straits at the moment. Was that not taken into consideration when discussing this particular salary?