Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will not read a prepared reply to this question because we have already covered the ground in a number of other questions.

The Haddington Road process was my first direct exposure to the structure of this type of broad-ranging, general public sector talks. These talks are, of necessity, complicated, because we have approximately 290,000 public sector workers, somewhat less than the 300,000 plus we had. The various groups have individual concerns and are paid in different ways. The way the process works is that we have a lead from the public service union side of the ICTU delegation, that is the main players in the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. They deal in the plenary negotiations with my lead negotiators from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, backed up by negotiators from key line Departments, those with large numbers, such as the Departments of Health, Education and Skills, and Local Government. Other groups are not part of ICTU quaICTU, like An Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces. They have bilateral discussions with my officials and bilateral discussions with ICTU. In that way they are kept in the loop and can feed into the process.

On the last occasion we had talks, public sector pensioners felt excluded from the process. I advised they should form their own organisation and they have done that and I have met with that umbrella organisation on a couple of occasions. I have instructed my officials to keep in touch with them during the current discussion process and to keep them in the loop in terms of any issue that may impact on them and their remuneration.

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