Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The salary that was sanctioned in December 2020 was for the post of Secretary General in the Department of Health. As the Deputy knows, there then followed an open competitive process which was administered by the Top-Level Appointments Committee and the Public Appointments Service. There were a significant number of applicants, including a number of international candidates who put themselves forward. I acknowledge that the joint committee, along with a number of members of the Committee of Public Accounts, conducted a significant amount of work over the course of last year and furnished a report in November making a series of recommendations for consideration. I have given some consideration to those at this point. We have a public service pay deal, Building Momentum, in place. It involves, in essence, three 1% increases over a two-year period. That pay deal will end at the end of the current year. As the Deputy knows, for both the increases in October 2021 and October 2022, we built in a proviso that there would be a minimum increase for those who are at the lower end of the pay scales across the public service.