Mr. Robert Watt:

When we discuss Croke Park flexibilities in terms of service attendants and service officers, we are referring to a small number of people who are the lowest paid public servants. Our Department focuses on initiatives, changes and reforms that deliver the greatest possible savings for the State. As such, we spend time on the key issues that matter to the Exchequer. There has been a significant reduction in the number of service attendants in the system. There have been pay savings across the board, greater flexibilities and more redeployments. We are always told of service officers doing much more, being spread across several offices because their colleagues who used to look after office X have moved on, etc. The Croke Park agreement has delivered office micro-changes and the co-operation that exists now might not have been forthcoming in the past.

To be blunt, we are engaged in a process with the services office in this regard and it is not our priority to go after allowances for the lowest paid groups in the public service, as they are few in number and account for €4.7 million out of a pay bill of €15.3 billion. We are referring to 0.34% of Civil Service pay, a rounding error in the context of the overall pay bill.