Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

They have indeed. At the end of this so-called pay restoration, public sector workers will still earn less than what they earned in 2008, when Fianna Fáil started it and before Fine Gael continued the latter's policies. That is shocking. This affects our young teachers, nurses and, let us not forget, the ushers who come in here and who have also been affected by a two-tier system, along with service workers. They effectively see a yellow-pack and low-paid grade that is enforced by this legislation. These workers did not have a single shred of responsibility for the economic crisis.

How did the people who scapegoated the public sector workers and who wish to continue to do so treat the those who actually caused the crisis? How did they treat them during the emergency years? They did not touch them. It was the one red line. We rolled over and accepted every element of austerity shoved down our throats by the troika. However, in the context of one issue, the Government stated there was a red line that would not be crossed. It would not increase the tax on corporations by one cent. How did those corporations in the interim? Their profits went up every single year from 2008 onwards. Gross pre-tax profits from 2008 - there was one fall in that year - went from €65 billion to the current figure of €95 billion. That is how well they have done, and they are only paying approximately 6% in tax. The Government will not take an extra cent from them but it wants the right to retain emergency pay and pension cuts, along with a two-tier apartheid pay structure for low-paid public sector workers.

I do not agree with Sinn Féin's argument.

6 o’clock

If we taxed the people in those corporations which were the culprits, namely, the banks and developers, and all those who are getting unknown billions in tax breaks in the property sector through section 110, we could easily restore all the cuts. Of course, we would not give pay increases to people in excess of €100,000 - we would take it through a tax on higher incomes. However, the Government does not want to do that or even talk about it. This was always about using the atmosphere of crisis to keep workers down and it still is. The cost is not just felt by the workers. It is linked to the current housing crisis because workers' pay does not enable them to pay their rent or get a mortgage. It is directly related to the health crisis because we cannot get nurses and medical professionals to work in our health services, on account of not paying them properly.

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