Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, have huge doubts and reservations around this and will be opposing the Public Service Pay and Pensions Bill 2017. It is hugely ironic. When I joined the post office in 1979 as a post office clerk, within one year equal pay was introduced for women in the workplace. That legislation came in from Europe as equal pay for work of equal value. Decades on, because the EU banks operated in a loose manner and the EU insisted that Ireland pay for the bank bailout, it is ironic that it is the public sector workers and workers who are paying for that bailout through the measure of unequal pay for public sector workers.

Nearly €3 billion has been robbed from the pockets of public sector workers over recent years since the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, legislation was introduced. It has affected some 300,000 public sector workers and this Bill does not do anything to address unequal pay for those workers, especially those in the three teachers' unions, the Defence Forces and nurses.

This legislation affects the public service stability agreement. It will compound the continuing inequality for post-2011 public service staff, including teachers, and it will lead to the net pay for most public servants being reduced through the conversion of the pension levy into a permanent pension contribution. That pension levy was temporary. It does not go into the pension. The way it is presented to the public is a misnomer. It goes back to the Government.

The three teachers' unions rejected the public service stability agreement. They did so mainly because it does not reverse pay inequality and specifically because it provides that no change can occur to deliver equal pay for the duration of the agreement. Teachers who were appointed in 2011 have already lost more than €26,000 in earnings, in addition to the pay cuts imposed on the more senior colleagues. There is no doubt that this inequality in pay is one of the reasons for the current acute crisis in teacher supply. If passed in its current form, this legislation will be used to try to prevent teachers' unions from taking effective action to deliver equal pay during the lifetime of the public service stability agreement up to 2020. This is because of the statutes contained in the legislation around unions that do not assent to the public service stability agreement. Members of the unions that do not assent will, among other measures, have increments frozen until 2021 and will face the effective continuation of the pension levy for two extra years. The intention is to force the unions which did not accept the agreement to assent to it, ignore the democratic wishes of their members and abandon any effective campaign to progress the just cause of lower-paid teachers and lecturers. The legislation represents a fundamental attack on trade union rights. The democratic right of union members to engage in free collective bargaining has been undermined and the right of members to say no to an unjust agreement is being denied.

It should be noted that the legislation provides for the eventual full restoration of the inflated pensions of those who were responsible for the economic crash. Ministers, taoisigh such as Brian Cowen and Bertie Ahern, and others will all receive increased pensions. This legislation, however, does not provide any pathway to equal pay for the lower-paid teachers and lecturers. I believe that the three teachers' unions are also looking at approaching the International Labour Organization on the increments freeze because it breaches the rights of free trade unions. This is in sections 21 and 23 which should be removed.

Nurses are affected worse with a starting salary of €28,600. Over the course of the past decade, the low pay has had the effect of undermining the profession. Between 2007 and 2011, the numbers in nursing have declined by 1,500 per year. In December 2007, a total of 39,006 full-time hours were worked and the most recent figures are 36,278. This includes 835 student nurses who are paid the minimum wage. The HSE has confirmed that in 2012, a total of 1,217 nurses graduated and 2,219 left the service. They most likely emigrated. In 2015, a total of 1,130 nurses graduated and 2,382 left the service. As for other therapy grades, nurses are required to have an honours degree and to work 39 hours per week, which is two hours more than the other grades, but they are paid approximately 20% less. This must be changed and we will bring forward amendments to the proposed legislation. The Government should look seriously at the equal pay issue and reinstate equal pay.

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