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

The union's leadership has come out strongly against the agreement accompanying the Minister's legislation because it believes that additional hours and the freezing of increments for its workers, who start on the grand salary of €22,000, constitute a bridge too far. I would wager that there is not a clerical officer within the service who believes that visiting more hardship on that group by freezing increments, seeking an effective pay cut - an increase in working hours amounts to this - and increasing the expense of the child care services for which many of them must pay can be considered to be in the public interest. It is a pity that the Minister fails to see this.

I proposed an amendment on the definition of increments because incremental payments should not be touched, including a freeze. As the Minister well knows, incremental payments are of most significance to those earning lower wages. For example, the Secretary General in the Minister's Department has no worries about incremental scales, given the fact that it is a one-point payscale. It filters across the system.

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