Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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What I have weighed up, in respect of this decision, is the choice I can make that will give me the greatest certainty regarding what the pay bill will look like in 2017. If the entire public pay bill was to go down the route it faced the risk of going down towards the end of 2016, the figures the Government would be asked but would be unable to find would be many multiples of this. They would be costs that would transfer into 2018, 2019 and 2020. That is unlike the agreement that I have today. One of the main reasons I am doing it, the Deputy has referred to the risks to service delivery, is that I am always doing this with a mind to those who depend on our public services. It is my judgment that a very significant risk exists to service delivery in our country if collective agreements, the principle of which I believe Sinn Féin supports, are undermined. I face that risk in the absence of this agreement. That is why I have made the choices I have in this regard.

Across this year, I will respond to the Oireachtas as to how this matter will be dealt with. I have outlined the options available as to how we will deal with it. I am repeating myself but then again, so has Deputy Doherty in terms of the points he has put to me. I believe the savings from the options available to me to generate this figure are equivalent to - and the figures that were delivered in the past, in 2016 in particular, are lower than - the cost of this agreement. In the absence of this agreement, I would have faced a horizon of potentially hundreds upon hundreds of millions of risk for our public service pay bill.