Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to request the Tánaiste’s help in clearing up the confusion that has arisen among public sector workers regarding their allowances. The Tánaiste will be aware that on 19 September the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, who had targeted savings of €75 million in abolishing 1,100 allowances, announced he could only find one allowance for existing workers that could be cancelled and the savings would only come to €3.5 million, a significant gap. Subsequent to this statement, both IMPACT and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions conveyed to the Government and the Minister there were further possibilities and that the Minister had not gone far enough, should have dug deeper and there was room for consultation. The Minister indicated he would undertake such consultation. Suddenly, on 28 September, nine days later, the Minister found he cut 90 allowances instead of one. That is a 9,000% improvement in nine days. The public and private sectors could take some lessons from that.

What procedure will the Government adopt to reduce these allowances? Is the procedure going to be within the terms of the Croke Park agreement? What savings does the Minister now envisage achieving? According to reports, one allowance he is proposing to cut, if cut last year, would have saved the country the grand sum of €2,500. Another one would have saved less than €20,000. Is this a genuine attempt at reform? Or is it, in the words of a Fine Gael backbencher quoted in this morning’s Irish Independent, a window-dressing exercise to take the heat out of the situation?

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