Ulick Burke (Galway East, Fine Gael)

The hypocrisy of the Minister for Finance this evening when he introduced the Second Stage of the Bill was difficult to understand. He said:

All of us in this House, in both our professional and our personal lives, have experienced the excellence and dedication of public servants. We all know, for example, the difference a good teacher can make not just to the lives of our children, but also to the morale of an entire parish or community.

What do they get for such lavish praise? In the case of teachers it is a 17% cut in salary across the board. The Minister further stated that the majority of public servants are on a low salary relative to the highest available to them. At the same time those on salaries of up to €30,000 will receive pay cuts of 5%, with a further 7.5% cut from the remainder of the salary for a teacher. The consequence is that the morale of teachers, along with that of the nurses and gardaí, is at an all-time low. It was bad because of the previous cuts, but it has now reached a very serious low, which will have serious consequences for the delivery of services.

Emanating from Ministers and their spin doctors, there is a vilification of certain sections of the public service, in particular teachers, nurses and gardaí. This evening all sides of the House have acknowledged the excellence of public servants who are delivering services to the public, whether in education, security or the health, together with the Departments' own services in social welfare and elsewhere. However, for all of that and the hard work those people do, they are now the targets of the harshest cut ever given. The Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, said earlier that he expects the unions to return to the table. He cannot expect to humiliate more than the Government has already done by walking away and turning its back on them prior to budget day. In order to get the transformation in practices in the public service, the Government will want all those in the public service, and the unions representing them, back at the table. It has as much chance of getting that as it does of winning the national lottery.

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