Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has moved with indecent haste to introduce this legislation. I was interested in his comments, in that he described it as part of "the Government's policy of restraint and prudent budget". There was a complimentary glow to that depiction. The agreement has just been published, some union leaderships have taken a judgment on it and not a single union member has been balloted on its provisions. The legislation could have waited, but the Minister's objective in pushing it through is to strong-arm public sector workers, the very workers for whom he is responsible. I consider this to be a pre-emptive strike against them. The contingency measures to which he referred are blunt threats - sign up or else. Shaping up to one's workforce with such bravado is unnecessary, unhelpful and bad practice.

The Minister stated that he had taken the radical decision to engage freely with employees and their representatives on the policy challenge facing us. Is it not extraordinary that a Labour Party Minister would consider a process of collective bargaining and consultation radical? It is not radical - it is necessary.

Following the rejection of Croke Park II, a new negotiation process was initiated. Mr. Kieran Mulvey of the Labour Relations Commission was tasked to take the lead and union leaderships engaged fully in the discussions despite the unduly constrained framework set by the Government. There was no need to bully the leaders to the table - they went openly. In the course of the discussions, however, the Minister intervened time and again, barracking from the sidelines with his contingency plans. This caused me to wonder when he stated this evening that, while some people believed that the Government should act unilaterally and reduce the pay of all public servants without consultation, discussion or negotiation, neither he nor the Government shared that view. This is precisely the view that he articulated throughout the process - pass the agreement or else. Now the message is to agree the Haddington Road deal or else. The big threats and big sticks are still out.

This legislation has already been presented to union members and has been widely reported and commented on in the media. Trade union members and public servants are fully aware of the Minister's intent in the event of rejection of the Haddington Road deal. The Government's approach throughout this sorry episode, from Croke Park to Haddington Road, demonstrates nothing short of contempt for public sector workers. Let us remember that this and the last Governments have cut the public sector workforce by 10%. There is a commitment to reduce it by a further 10,000 workers. As at 2008, staffing figures in the public sector were slightly below the OECD average. In a comparison with eight countries, including Britain, Canada and the Netherlands, Ireland had the third lowest figure for general government employment per 1,000 population, as I am sure the Minister knows.

Last December, he told the Dáil that there were 565,000 more medical card holders, 50,000 more students in schools, close to 30,000 more third level students and 80,000 more State pensioners. Carer's allowance applications are taking six months to process and children seeking speech and therapy supports are on waiting lists of at least one year. Today, 292 people are lying on hospital trolleys and 14% of the working population continues to rely on social protection supports and services to make ends meet.

Despite this upwards trend or spike in public service need, significantly fewer public sector employees are dealing with the increased demand. They are working harder and for longer, with less pay and within a system that is inadequately resourced. This is unsustainable.

Railroading the legislation through the Dáil is little more than throwing political shapes. As the employer of the largest workforce in the State, it is wrong of the Minister to behave in this way.

This legislation and the Haddington Road agreement contain provisions to cut public sector pensions. As the Minister pointed out, the majority of public sector pensions in payment are to the value of €30,000 per year or less and, therefore, will be unaffected. Pensioner representative organisations, such as the Garda Síochána Retired Members Association, GSRMA, and the Senior Citizens' Parliament, have raised concerns with the lack of consultation with public sector pensioners during negotiations. Although the Minister and officials met the Alliance of Retired Public Servants, it was too little, too late. He has committed to lessening the burden of the public service pension reduction, with the initial focus on former workers who are in receipt of low-income pensions, at the earliest date that economic progress permits. This sounds like good news, but low-income pensioners, like their low-income public sector worker counterparts, could be forgiven for not taking much comfort from these words. The first Croke Park deal contained a similar commitment for low-paid workers that has yet to materialise thanks to our own troika of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour and their agreed economic strategy of the past five years.

I hope that the Minister lives up to his commitment to continue to engage with the Alliance of Retired Public Servants and that he extends this necessary, minimal courtesy to other representative organisations. However, his dogged refusal to address the small number of gold-plated pensions still being paid out to former taoisigh, Ministers and officeholders is a matter of immense frustration. Paying out pensions to the tune of €150,000 is unacceptable in good times as well as bad. Refusing to take on these payments within the reform agenda makes a mockery of every public claim to change.

When the Minister makes excuses for not cutting excessive pensions, he cites the Attorney General's advice. We have yet to see that advice. It may not be the norm for such advice to be published, but a Minister dedicated to increased public scrutiny of Government decisions would have no reason not to make such advice public. Regardless, the property rights argument does not stand. The public service pension reduction is a levy on public sector pensions and has been in place for a number of years. Therefore, the precedent for the Government to cut public sector pensions has been set. The Government has also placed a levy on private pensions, reaffirming its ability to target pensions. Indeed, the IBRC Act, which was also rushed through the House, included a provision requiring "permanent or temporary interference with the rights, including property rights, of persons", debunking the Government's position that property rights are sacrosanct. I am unsure as to what could be fairer than ending the practice of significant pension pay-outs to political insiders during a time of ongoing economic and social crisis.

If the Government is comfortable with threatening to freeze indefinitely the increments of clerical officers, 75% of whom are women and are on starting salaries of €22,000 per year, and to cut their pay further while increasing their working week if they do not sign up to its latest round of cuts, surely reducing substantially the outrageous gold-plated pensions paid out to predominantly male former politicians is not beyond its reach. Sinn Féin has often proposed a large levy, essentially a clawback levy, on public pensions in excess of €100,000. A reforming, radical and fair government would introduce such a measure.

Reference has already been made to yesterday's media report that the Irish Federation of University Teachers, IFUT, is commissioning legal advice to examine the FEMPI legislation’s provision to allow the Government to cut the pay of public sector workers without agreement. The IFUT's general secretary said yesterday that he believed there are constitutional implications for the legislation on the basis that it is the first time that the treatment of employees will be dictated by their membership or non-membership of a union, rather than the work they do and the grade they hold. I do not know whether the Minister sought advice from the Attorney General on the matter but, if he did, I urge that he would make the information public. If not, I would like to know whether he intends to do so.

The Minister's increasingly cynical use of the legislative process is deeply worrying. I previously raised concerns with him on the Houses of the Oireachtas (Inquiries, Privileges and Procedures) Bill, which have clearly fallen on deaf ears. The Minister, Deputy Howlin, scheduled the Oireachtas inquiries Bill for Second Stage debate in the Dáil before the final legislation was even published. Despite the contentious nature of the Bill, and the Minister's abject failure to publicly engage with citizens on the Oireachtas inquiries referendum he appears to have learnt nothing from the experience. He has again given Members just two working days to consider and submit Committee Stage amendments to the Bill – just less than eight working days since the legislation was first published. By any standards that is unacceptable. It certainly makes something of a mockery of the Minister's claim to reforming zeal. In addition, there is the long-awaited whistleblower's Bill. In light of the ongoing controversy surrounding the Minister for Justice and Equality, the Minister, Deputy Howlin, might have been better off prioritising that legislation rather than forcing through the FEMPI legislation.

On behalf of Sinn Féin I will table a number of amendments to the Bill. The gist of our approach is that we want excessive pay at the top reined in. We do not want it done gently or delicately, we want it done clearly and definitively. If that does not happen, as I have said repeatedly to the Minister then he cannot make any claim to fairness. He cannot dangle threats over low and middle-income workers while protecting those at the very top. There is no good reason for not imposing substantial cuts to the pay of the Taoiseach and Ministers, over and above what is envisaged in the current arrangement. Neither is there a reason not to re-examine the pay of hospital consultants, bar a lack of political will. There is certainly no good reason why the gold-plated pensions in payment to many of the great and good of this island cannot be tackled.

Sinn Féin does not support cutting the pay of low and middle-income public sector workers, whether in the form of cuts to core pay, allowances, twilight payments or additional hours of work, which in real terms amount to a cut in pay for such workers. We will not support that. Any argument based on equity or people carrying their fair share of the burden to dress up attacks on those categories of workers is simply wrong. We do not support the Government's position that €300 million in 2013 and an additional €1 billion by 2015 must be cut from the public sector pay and pensions bill. I have set out the position on how savings could be found in the pay and pensions bill. If the moneys are so desperately needed, other measures could be taken and the Government knows that well. It cannot go back again to public sector workers.

I listened carefully to the Minister's insightful but worrying comment. He said, "measures we are taking on public expenditure can have a negative short-run impact on economic output". He then went on to extol what he saw as the great achievements of the Administration. At no point did he sound out the reality of a domestic economy that is in crisis. Either the Minister is oblivious to the fact, which I doubt, or he simply edited out the reality from his script. He said the cuts he would introduce might have a negative short-run impact. That will not be much comfort to the workers in receipt of the cuts. Taking people's spending power out of the domestic economy and putting money instead into the black hole of bad bank debt, for instance, is not a good strategy. There has been a consistent strategy of austerity for private sector workers, but also for those within the public sector, who are on modest wages - many of whom are in negative equity and who struggle with all of the same dilemmas and pressures as private sector workers. Taking money out of their pocket makes absolutely no sense. The deep worry, which extends beyond public sector workers, is that we can see from the Minister's script this evening that he is definitely wedded to a strategy of cutbacks for the lower echelons of society, the ordinary five eights - the average man or woman - yet he will persistently defend those at the very top. That is unacceptable and verges on the obnoxious. The union leadership will take their view on the agreement, now called the Haddington Road agreement. In most cases members will be balloted. It is the prerogative of every worker to take his or her decision on the matter. I cannot imagine any public sector worker taking any comfort from the fact that the Minister has taken to himself in this pre-emptive way the power to cut the wages of those workers if he does not get the answer he likes. The Minister, Deputy Howlin, has form in that regard.

I look forward to Committee Stage on which he will table amendments. Perhaps the miraculous will happen and the Minister might see the light. He might listen to some of the good sense and the reality behind some of the amendments we are moving. However, I suspect that will not be the case. The manner in which the legislation has been rushed through the Dáil to be in the Seanad by Thursday is disgraceful and sends a negative message to public sector workers. It also sends a very negative message to elected Members of the Oireachtas.

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