Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

When I was thinking about this debate I thought about being outside the gates of the Dáil yesterday, where I was with 15 other Deputies and Senators. We conducted a publicity event on repealing the eighth amendment to highlight an aspect of how it impacts a certain cohort of women more than others.

That cohort includes poorer women and women in direct provision. Most people would interpret that as talking about part-time workers, cleaners and people who work in hotels, such as waitresses. One would think these are people who generally earn less than others or who do not earn anything and are dependent on social protection but when I looked at the Department's report on the pay of public sector workers, it is quite astonishing that it admits that 60,000 workers are impacted by discrimination and low pay in the public sector. According to the report, it amounts to almost 20% of all public sector workers.

One would not think that in speaking about low pay it is such a big issue. These people are earning approximately less than €28,000 per year, and it might seem to some people like a big figure. The bar being used is a comparison with the private sector, and the argument is that these people are not so badly off because they are earning around the same or a little less than those in the private sector. Shame on the Department for using such a bar. If one was to forensically root through the reports from the past couple of years, one would find that in analysing the crash in the economy. A narrative was brought about arguing that the problem was not Lehman Brothers, Anglo Irish Bank, the behaviour of bankers, developers and those who squandered the boom and drove the economy into the pits of depression, but actually the public sector. The argument goes that it is bloated, spoiled and there are too many public servants earning too much with pensions that are too high. It was a war on public sector workers conducted by Fianna Fáil and the Greens, followed by Fine Gael and Labour, and it is has really continued up to now.

Unless the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, makes a commitment to abolish the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, legislation and reinstate the pay levels of public sector workers to what they were, all he is saying is that he will continue to "wind down" the measures. I am really tired of listening to him saying he will wind down FEMPI and things will happen gradually. It is a bit like a robber consistently coming to a house, robbing it, albeit by a bit less each time, while saying the wholesale burglary is being wound down. The pay and conditions of public sector workers have been raided to bail out the bankers and developers, as I have said. It is about time to end the narrative.

Looking at the reports, we can see how there is a wholesale attempt to diminish the pay and conditions of public sector workers, and as we predicted at the time, it was adopted as a model by the private sector. The argument now can be that they all earn too little and can barely manage on the salaries they get because of increasing costs for rent and child care and the increasing inability to afford to buy one's own home. It leaves people like nurses, teachers and sometimes doctors and people in the Defence Forces in a position where they fell pressured and sometimes ashamed that they cannot afford to rent or buy property to the required or expected standard.

These people are struggling on low pay in an economy that is in recovery, although one might think it if one was a public sector worker. We have the scapegoating of the public sector in order to improve the economy. It is about time the Minister and his Department acknowledges that the war on workers must end. FEMPI should end this year and there should be a serious attempt to reinstate the original pay and conditions of those workers, as well as the allowances paid to them. Despite that report after report seems to deny it, the Government is facing an inability to recruit and retain front-line workers in the public sector. In my area last year, the entire Linn Dara unit, one of the only units in the country for adolescents with mental health illness, had to close because the service could not retain psychiatric nurses. Members know that many psychiatric workers do amazing work but the new workers that the Government is trying to recruit and retain struggle to survive on the pay they have. That struggle to survive on the pay provided has a major impact on the services. It is a double whammy and the Government is not just hitting public sector workers but the services they provide as well.

Teachers, nurses, people in the Defence Forces and other public sector workers out there feel they are being robbed and not being paid enough because they must work an extra shift for nothing. They feel they are being treated in a different and unequal way to colleagues. I agree with their sentiments. They must keep up the pressure on the Government to have this ended. We are hitting June again and by next month the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, will have to stand in front of us and justify the continuation of the piece of emergency legislation that has lasted for the longest time in this State. The FEMPI legislation is ridiculously inappropriate now that the economy is growing and in recovery; the Minister boasts about the same quite frequently. Unless there is a serious attempt to end inequality in public sector pay, the people in the Department and the Government will be talking out of both sides of their mouths. These reports would be absolutely meaningless in such a case. I look forward to June's debate on FEMPI in this House and we will see where the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, takes us then.

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