Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister talked about the 94%, which is the same figure about which I talked. I simply put the focus on those earning below the living wage, which is 6% in the public sector and 1% in the Civil Service. It would not require a huge amount of money for the Minister to do this. He referred to pay deals and all the rest. Let us look at the pay deals and the upper end. Let us look at the fact that the additional part of the pay deal for those in the public sector who earn more than €90,000 will cost a total of €55 million. Let us look at the fact that 489 individuals working in the public sector will get an increase of €11,749 per year. That is half the living wage.

The cost of this is in the small few millions. There would also be net savings because 3,600 of these individuals have to rely on family income supplement payments to get by. It is almost question of principle and, forgetting about the year on year increments, whether the Minister believes that within two or three years no one working in the public sector should be receiving less from the State in payment than the living wage? I want to introduce it in this budget and we will show in our alternative budget that it can be done.

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