Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I accept the Minister saying that this is small in an overall context but it would be useful for the public service - I speak in the interests of public servants - not to have any old allowances which cannot be justified in a business case today. If some of them have to be bought out, long-established mechanisms in the public service can be used and we should do that and get it over with. Perhaps there is a cashflow issue that must be dealt with.

I was particularly impressed by one allowance when I heard of it at the Committee of Public Accounts. It is an allowance of €5,000 per annum paid to Garda inspectors who process all the prosecutions in District Courts around the country. A senior counsel could not be engaged for a day and a half for that fee but these people would be on their feet at District Courts every week of the year, processing thousands of cases. Some allowances are very well earned and amount to outstanding value for money, so it would be good to see some of them incorporated into core pay.

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