Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There are clearly elements of the renegotiated Croke Park agreement that are very unfair to certain workers, a fact that is being made worse every day by a very cynical divide and conquer strategy that is being deployed by the Government. We have gardaí, health care workers, nurses, emergency medical technicians, Army personnel and many more who seem to have been singled out for particular treatment. The situation for those workers is deeply unfair. Adding to that unfairness, side deals are being done on an ongoing basis. Fire personnel and prison officers are retaining double pay on a Sunday while their front-line colleagues, the gardaí, EMTs and nurses, are being treated in a much more vindictive way.

A health care assistant on a gross income of €27,000 per annum faces a cut of 8%, meaning a reduction in his weekly pay packet of €50. Workers earning between €150,000 and €185,000 are getting the same percentage cut as the health care worker on €27,000. That is not fair. The reason for it is because the entire deal revolves around the make-up of a person's pay. Two people on the same income according to their payslips at the end of a week will see a considerably different impact on their take-home pay as a result of this deal, depending on how it is made up between core pay and shift work premiums.

There are thousands of shift workers who are on low pay and who work in the front-line services and part of their normal core hours is to work Sunday and night-time. They depend on the premium payments they receive from these hours as part of their normal pay and would have secured their mortgages on that basis. I would ask the Taoiseach a basic question. Why has the Government decided to single out these workers - healthcare workers, gardaí, emergency medical technicians, nurses, Army personnel - for such unfair treatment as a result of this deal?

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