Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The issue of addressing the difference in incremental salary scales between those public servants who entered public service employment since 2011 and those who entered before that date was addressed with the relevant trade union interests under the provisions of the Haddington Road agreement. My Department and the Department of Education and Skills reached an agreement with the INTO and TUI on many, albeit not all, of the issues related to pay equalisation and we made progress in resolving some of them.

As part of the public service stability agreement, a commitment was made to commence a process of examining pay equalisation within 12 months of the agreement being reached. While the agreement has only recently been ratified and I have not yet introduced legislation to give effect to it, I am pleased to note that the first meeting under this process took place on 12 October. As a result of that meeting, a process has been agreed whereby the issue will be analysed and data generated. The process will be managed by the oversight body for the public service stability agreement, on which officials of my Department and representatives of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions sit. The process will be managed by both parties to the agreement and I am sure efforts will be made to progress work quickly next year.

To return to a point I made in my exchange with Deputy Lisa Chambers earlier, the Department of Education and Skills has estimated that the cost of implementing pay equalisation in education would be €70 million in 2018. If pay equalisation were extended to the Department of Health, the cost would increase to €156 million. If it were extended to all staff hired on new entrant scales, it would increase to €209 million. To reiterate a point I made to Deputy Lisa Chambers, it is very difficult to make a move in one area that does not have consequences elsewhere. To put the figure of €209 million in context, it amounts to a significant proportion of the full cost of the entire pay agreement in the early years after its implementation.

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