Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have analysed the impact of the spending power of public servants and social welfare recipients on large parts of the economy. These factors are taken into account. This the first time we have drilled down into the composition of pay. I have been honest in acknowledging that it is much more complicated than I first envisaged. Under the pay regime that has built up over decades, allowances were subsumed into core pay across swathes of the public service to meet various sectoral agreements at different times. Relativities, in terms of people in different categories of employment, were part of the pay structure. It is an extraordinarily complicated task to disaggregate that system.

Now that we have seen the picture we have set about eliminating those allowances which are not justified by using the mechanisms of Croke Park to buy them out, except for those which are such important parts of core pay that it would be unacceptable to force the sector of our community which receives them to carry an inordinate burden. We are going to create new pay structures across the public service so that the allowances are subsumed into normal pay structures. These are complicated issues but my Department and I are determined to address them. People sometimes view these matters at a surface level but true reform is much more complicated and demanding. I am determined to deliver a truly reformed public service at the end of the day.

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