Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is merit in what the Deputy is saying. It is necessary to maintain the income stream from the reduction of pay that underpins the 2015 budget, and without the FEMPI legislation that budget would not be robust. I am conscious, and I have said this to the House, that the FEMPI legislation is by its nature an emergency, and that is why I have to make a report to the House. The day will come, thankfully, when it will not be possible to assert that the emergency will be maintained; the emergency will be over. I want to prepare for an orderly unwinding of the FEMPI legislation rather than simply drifting into a situation in which somebody could take a court action and the courts could say that there is demonstrably not an emergency to sustain it. I have indicated that I propose to open negotiation with the public sector unions during the course of 2015 to discuss an orderly wind-down of the FEMPI legislation and to discuss the broader horizon of public sector pay as we go forward.

See this speech in context