Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The review body refers to this category of people in respect of this report. What bodes for the future, I cannot state. If we want to get people of commensurate ability into the public service to deal with very important issues, we must have an attractive enough remunerative package to have the person do the job. It is an indication of what happens if one leaves a very anomalous situation between wage rates in the public and private sectors at high managerial posts. The requirement is often for Government, agencies or Departments to seek to obtain specific approvals in respect of remunerative packages to bring on board the people chosen by the committee established to find the person with the requisite skills to do the job.

This is why in our effort to show probity, with which I agree, in the context of the decision we made in terms of the present economic circumstances, the need to avoid creating further anomalies arising out of that is an issue which must be considered for the future. A pay review recommendation body examines all these issues in the context of categories of people and at what grades they should be, based on an updating of whatever responsibilities they may have in a Department in which traditionally they may have had less responsibilities in the past. All these issues are dealt with independently at that level. This is not an easy area and we must be careful to find ways and means of arbitrating on these issues in a way that ensures the best of people are available to do these very important jobs, which is the purpose of the exercise.

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