Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

In the report of the higher level review body, published on Friday, salaries of €300,000 are attributed to Secretaries General who will take a 15% cut. In the Schedule, they are offering 20% which is net of the 20% reduction that they apparently already offered up. The gardaí and the nurses will be offering up a real 7% while some higher civil servants will be simply offering an additional net, falling well below the reduction to be borne by the former. The arithmetic is not set out clearly. However, I assume the Minister will give us these amendments to examine.

Why is the National Treasury Management Agency exempt from this legislation? While it works hard on behalf of the people, it was reported its chief executive's salary has a compensation package that may total €1 million. According to figures supplied to the Labour Party, the managing director of Coillte, a public body with an annual turnover of €250 million, has a salary package of €489,000 but will also be exempt from this legislation. It is grotesquely unfair that the Minister asks the part-time cleaner in the public service to take a 5% net hit while not asking those in the upper echelons to do so.

Anglo Irish Bank is one of the reasons the gardaí, the nurses and the teachers are taking hits in their income. It is a fully nationalised institution but yet it appears on the list of exempted bodies. I do not know whether the Minister cares to nod in agreement with my interpretation of this provision.

Definitions covered by the Bill have been extended to include people working for any body that is wholly or partly funded or indirectly out of moneys provided by the Oireachtas, the Central Fund or the growing produce of that fund. Section 39 of the 2004 health Act provides for payments to home helps. According to the legal advice available to the Labour Party, this Bill will apply to home helps who will be affected by this extension of the definition. Does the Minister intend to cut the salaries of home helps when many of them are already having their hours cut?

Many care homes run by a voluntary body, religious order or a charity may have their beds subvented from public funds. How will this legislation affect those working in this sector? How will it affect those employed by partnerships, community development programmes and family resource centres, all funded by various Departments? While many of them are paid through public funds, they do not get the benefit of a public service pension as they pay PRSI or contribute to their own pension scheme. Is the Minister seriously telling us that these pay reduction measures will not apply to employees of Anglo Irish Bank but will apply to publicly funded home helps and those working in nursing homes and family resource centres?

The public service unions worked out a formula for the proposal of 12 days of unpaid leave to be spread over several years, a sort of carry-over. It was unacceptable to everyone that this proposal would involve the closure of schools or other public facilities, hence this carry-over provision. However, as the Minister for Finance will be aware, under our tax laws Anglo Irish Bank's golden circle can carry forward their losses on the putative investment made on their behalf, running to about €450 million, not for six years but indefinitely.

Under the de minimus rule, which the Taoiseach introduced when he was Minister for Finance after a long campaign by myself, an individual can bring one's tax payment up to the 20% rate - next year the Minister said in the budget it will be 30%. However, if that individual foregoes any tax reliefs, he or she can carry them forward not for six years but indefinitely. When I raised the issue of tax losses for the banks with the Minister during the debate on the NAMA legislation, he claimed he would restrict them for a period. However, he later wrote into the legislation that the tax losses could be recovered in not one or six years but indefinitely. Perhaps the public sector trade union leaders have been and are so involved in the top echelons of government that they have been told about this spread out system whereby if one has tax allowances one can carry them forward and use them forever. Perhaps that is from where they got the idea. This notion of carry forward and pay back over a long period is absolutely central to large elements of the tax code. Perhaps the public service unions were confused because they had already seen this principle applied by Government to their friends in the banks.

I understand - perhaps the Minister will state on the record if this is correct - that the new regulator of the Financial Services Regulatory Authority, to be included in the new Central Bank structure, whom I am told is a fine individual and will bring many skills to the post, is to be paid a package in the region of €100,000 to €150,000 more than the previous incumbent, Mr. Neary. I have tabled a number of parliamentary questions in this regard to the Minister. I understand, informally, that that is the case. How can the Minister square the possibility of the Financial Regulator getting a significant salary increase - the Minister does not appear to be denying this and it was defended by the Governor of the Central Bank in his speech as being necessary - with the real and serious cuts to be imposed on the pay of nurses, garda and teachers from 1 January? The Minister also defended a salary of €500,000 as being necessary in respect of top bankers.

The Taoiseach has stated before that we are all in this together. While some of us are in it, the golden circle of Fianna Fáil, the developers, their tax breaks and tax entitlements, remain untouched by this legislation. The Government has kept the golden circle and their entitlements in tact in this legislation.

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