Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

That is fair enough.

The other issue that is raised is the Minister's proposal to have a benchmarking process for higher paid people in the public service. I presume that Members of the Oireachtas are included in that process. The Minister has not really clarified in his presentation how that procedure is intended to operate. There was quite a degree of debate about the issue of how individuals would be benchmarked, particularly those in the high earnings brackets. On the previous occasion when there was a review of the remuneration of higher paid individuals in the public service, there was a rather strange system where an arbitrary assumption was made that the value of a public service pension to higher paid people was 15% when quite plainly the value to higher paid people is a great deal more than 15%. Some people estimate that the value of pensionability to senior people in the public service and Ministers would be in the order of 40%.

Recommendations were then made on what were supposed to be benchmarks of pay that ended up with our Ministers and Taoiseach being award pay levels that were several times higher than those in other jurisdictions, including in vastly larger and more complex states. We need to understand what is the benchmark generally with regard to higher paid people in the public service. How is it intended to create comparators? Who will make the key decisions on what are the relevant comparators? There is a legitimate belief that higher paid people in the public service, including ourselves, have enjoyed increases that were out of line with what occurred in the private sector.

The most recent review of higher remuneration - which the Government was going to implement only that the public outcry was so great - was not based on any serious benchmarking exercise against people with comparable responsibilities. We need to have an objective test for benchmarking exercises. I am interested to hear how the Minister intends that process to proceed generally with regard to people in the public service, particularly having regard to pensionability at a time when private sector pensions are under such stress, how will that be factored in and what are valid comparators in an exercise such as this.

I welcome the Bill as a first step. As I stated, as far as Fine Gael is concerned it has not gone far enough but I understand there are legal reasons for that not being possible and I look forward to hearing them. I am surprised that we have not heard them at this stage as I understood the Government also felt the Bill would go much further. It appears it proceeded along a route either without adequate legal advice at the time of the first decision or the legal advice changed at some point.

The one element we may live to question is whether removing increments from the salary structure of Deputies is a good thing. I understand that in the current situation it is an obvious target but increments seem to be a feature of pay systems. Fine Gael has taken the view that increments should be frozen throughout the public sector and not only for Deputies, but that is as a crisis measure and not as a long-term policy position. I am interested to hear the Minister's view on what he sees as the status of increments generally and why they are good in some walks of life but not in the political one. I say this not to oppose this in any way but to ensure we distinguish between what we might do in an emergency and what we might see as a long-term sensible structure for people who choose a career in politics. I do not want to use up much more of the time because it would be useful to have more than half an hour on the amendments. I welcome the Bill.

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