Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to be able to speak on this issue today. As the youngest Deputy in the House, I will focus on the impact of the FEMPI legislation on young people - school and college leavers - entering the Civil Service. The legislation was brought in six years ago to curtail expenditure on public pay. Unfortunately, the measures were necessary at the time and the economic recession illustrated that. Enormous credit is due to public sector workers who had to swallow this very hard medicine. During this time, their workload increased due to the numbers who retired and the recruitment embargo, and yet the money they were taking home at the end of the month fell. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to all those who continued to work diligently and who still do so for the good of the country in trying circumstances. The legislation has helped put us back on the right course and I am very grateful that Ireland in 2016 is a very different place from Ireland in 2009 when FEMPI was introduced. This is why we are able to have this conversation today.

Fianna Fáil supports the gradual unwinding of the FEMPI legislation and a return to normal industrial relations mechanisms. I would love to be able to do what Deputy Coppinger says and make the magic bullet response and restore public sector pay fully. As Deputy Thomas Byrne has mentioned, we have to be responsible and target those low and middle-income earners in the public sector who should have their pay restored. If we were to remove FEMPI today, those at the higher end of the payscale-----

See this speech in context