Darragh O'Brien (Dublin North, Fianna Fail)

She stated "Members must stand back and be fair when evaluating the strengths and failures of the public sector in Ireland." Is the Labour Party being fair in its evaluation of the pensions levy? It has even stated it would introduce one but it has not produced any figures on what its proposal would save. Urgent action is needed and the Labour Party appeared to agree with this approach just a month ago.

The Government is committed to remaining engaged with the social partners over the coming years to bring about the required savings of €18 billion. The scaled pensions levy is the fairest way to try to deal with the public sector pay bill, which cannot be sustained at present. The levy is scaled based on earnings, from 3% for those on €15,000, to 9.6% for those on €300,000 and over. The levy attracts full tax relief at the marginal rate and will also have the effect of securing the defined benefit pensions held by the public service. A pay cut would have done neither. It is not a question of singling out the public service.

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