Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I join with the Tánaiste and the leader of Fine Gael in expressing the hope that the talks in Belfast will reach a successful conclusion. On behalf of the Labour Party, I want to say we support the efforts of the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister in trying to bring about a resolution to matters, in particular the long-awaited devolution of the policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly.

I want to ask the Tánaiste about pay. By the end of this week every employee of the State will have his or her pay cut for the second time in less than a year. Workers in the public sector earning €25,000 a year will have their pay cut by €160 a month, the pay of a garda or teacher in the middle of his or her scale will have been cut by €400 a month and that of a staff nurse with ten years experience will have been cut by €560 a month.

Does the Tánaiste appreciate the level of anger among such State employees? That anger has been compounded by the sweetheart arrangement which the Government made with senior civil servants to limit the impact of the pay cuts on those senior officers. We are now beginning to see pay cuts in the public sector being used to drive down levels of pay in the voluntary and private sectors. I have a circular which was issued by the HSE to agencies and charities it funds, directing them to cut the pay of their staff by the same amount as cuts in the public sector, even though there is no legislative basis for that. In addition, those staff are not public servants and were not included in the legislation passed by the Oireachtas before Christmas.

Over the weekend we saw reports of plans by the Government to provide for an inability to pay provision in respect of some categories of workers who are covered by legally enforceable minimum rates of pay. There have been repeated reports that it is intended to cut the national minimum wage.

I have three questions for the Tánaiste arising from that. First, what assurance, if any, can she give to workers who have had their pay cut not once but twice over the last year that they will not have their pay cut again? Second, can she tell us on what legal basis the HSE, or any other public authority for that matter, is issuing directives to agencies funded by it that they have to cut pay the same as for public servants? Third, will the Tánaiste rule out cutting the national minimum wage?

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