Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)

Deputy McDonald will be fully aware that I am a strong supporter of the Croke Park agreement. I have published and commented on the two reviews that have been carried out on the agreement to date and I am strongly of the view that it has delivered significant savings to the State, including payroll costs of €1.5 billion and non-payroll costs to supplement that. Equally important is that the Croke Park infrastructure has afforded a mechanism for significant reform, which has not been fully recognised by some of the commentariat. We have moved people, delivered services differently and downsized. In the first two months of 2012 more than 8,000 people left the public service. Chaos was predicted as result but the ability to redeploy, change rosters and move things - an infrastructure that many of my colleagues in Europe envy - allowed us to make fundamental changes in the way services were delivered in an atmosphere of industrial peace. This is extremely important in terms of the perception of Ireland and our attractiveness to inward investment.

I am aware that in advance of the Croke Park agreement elements of increments were regarded as core pay. That has been adjudicated by the Labour Court. I have already expressed my view on addressing the quantum of pay. We have imposed a cap on civil servants for the first time so that no civil servant is paid more than €200,000. We also imposed a cap on pay in semi-States. Deputy McDonald spoke about breaching that cap. I will explain the pay scale in detail on another occasion when I have more time but, as the Deputy will be aware, it is an indicative scale of relativities. We need to be honest in recognising that getting people with the skills required for some of the jobs that need to be done in the public interest and the public service requires a degree of flexibility. I have indicated that but I have appointed nobody and have authorised no payment in excess of the cap of €250,000 that I announced in respect of the semi-State sector. When one considers that only 18 months ago some individuals were in receipt of salaries that were multiples of that cap, one gets a sense of how far we have come. We need to achieve a balance between what is right in terms of driving State industries to be productive and deliver on jobs, which is the No. 1 priority for this State, while at the same ensuring solidarity in both the private and public sector in this time of difficulty. One can also see the revolution that is taking place in the private sector in regard to exorbitantly high pay rates.

I am anxious to negotiate and interact with the trade union movement, as I do all the time, to get the best value. As long as the unions that are signed up to the Croke Park agreement deliver their side of the bargain, the Government is committed to delivering its side.

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