Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

I wish to share my time with Deputy Bruton. I was delighted to see the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, put on the record that in hindsight many of the decisions taken in the past ten years by the Government may well have been wrong. It is a bit late for that. He is coming very late to it, especially since considerable pay increases have been awarded to people over a very short period.

I refer specifically to the most recent increases outlined in the report of the review body on higher remuneration in the public service of October 2007, covering 1,600 top civil servants and the extraordinary increases proposed in it. The increase at the assistant secretary level was approximately 5.5%, and that at Secretary General level was approximately 11.3%. The proposed increases for the chief executive officers of IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, Forfás and FÁS were in the order of 22.5%. Compare that with what principal teachers obtained. Principals got nothing out of that, yet their proposed increase in terms of the allowances and changes in the last benchmarking award has not come into effect. The awards to principals, the senior managers within our education system, were never paid. Therefore, under the last review, an assistant secretary got a 5% increase; a principal got nothing. When one considers that in the most recent budget the pay reductions of principals was in the order of 8% and those at assistant secretary level within the Civil Service saw the now proposed 3% reduction, one cannot compare them only in respect of the last budget. One must compare them in a context of extraordinary pay increases over recent years.

The Minister is also wrong when he and his colleague told the House in a debate in which I participated that only those public servants who were paying the pension levy would be affected by the pay cut of December last. What we were told was totally untrue. It emerged in the Committee Stage debate, as the Minister of State, Deputy Mansergh, well knows, that those substitute teachers and temporary workers within the public sector saw a percentage pay reduction across the board.

Therefore, there is no fairness in the way in which the Government has dealt with the issue. Many lower paid civil servants and public servants are now having to be bailed out by family income supplement because they have seen a reduction in their take home pay, a reduction as a result of the pension levy and the income levy.

It is grotesque and unacceptable that the Government has introduced this sweetheart deal for more than 600 top civil servants. It sends out a negative message to other public servants, especially those on lower grades who are struggling to make ends meet.

I put it to the Minister of State that the Government's policy is all over the place. It shunts from one day to the next. There is no clarity in the way in which the Government has gone about this. It is grossly unfair to give a sweetheart deal to one group of civil servants and public servants over another in a circumstance where those people have seen significant increases in their pay over recent years. Deputy Bruton put on the record of the House last night that over the past six years those civil servants have seen an increase in the order of 70% to 80% in their gross pay and will obtain that very handsome pension at the time of retirement. This has not been fair. It has been a bad day for the public service and it has been a bad day for the Government which has botched this scheme right the way back to the budget.

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