Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

Above all else what has astonished me most about the Minister, as a Minister with responsibility for reform, is the dogged manner in which he has defended very high pay rates in the public sector. The ESRI, the OECD and others were quoted earlier by Deputy Stephen Donnelly. The Minister will probably also be aware of a 2011 document published by the IPA. Not alone does it reflect that we have run away rates for those in the upper echelons but it also reflects that the pay gap between the higher levels and the lower levels within the public sector are enormous and much greater than within the EU-15. I do not believe the Minister is serious about tackling very high pay. A Secretary General should not earn €200,000 at a time when the State is insolvent, we are all in crisis and we are told that we are all in this together.

I am glad the Minister has confirmed that in this instance he will not breach the pay ceiling, albeit hugely high, in respect of the replacement in the Department of Finance. The Minister will have to forgive me because my confidence in his commitment to this issue was shattered by the fact that we discovered, courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act, that in respect of his own adviser, the Minister had sought to break the pay ceiling he proposed be established. He has come into this House to defend very high pay levels. He has repeatedly quoted that the salaries of Secretaries General have fallen from €285,000 to €200,000, while not reflecting the scandal that they were on €285,000 to begin with. He has told us that he is all in favour of dealing with runaway pay rates for those in the upper echelons, yet he by his own actions has defied that.

When the issue of pay in the public service is raised, I want to it to be clear that I and others do not refer to clerical officers or young teachers. The Minister knows precisely to whom we refer.

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