Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Last night, in the debate on the Finance Bill, we discussed the unwinding of FEMPI. Effectively, the Minister said this will take at least 16 years for 300,000 public servants so that rather than having one decade of austerity, they are heading for two decades. Were there not other options for moving to immediate pay equalisation under section 11 of the Public Service Pay and Pensions Act 2017? The Minister and other Deputies will know that, any time we visit a school, we find the whole issue of pay equality comes to the forefront. The 16,000 new teachers hired since 2011 consistently raise this with us as a grave injustice. The Minister explained the jump in the two increments but we are not returning to pay equality.

I met several delegations of hospital doctors and consultants just last week. Yesterday, the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, said the two-tier system is clearly a factor which is profoundly affecting recruitment and retention. He said it is estimated it would cost €45 million to bring the pay of new entrant consultants into line with their colleagues. Week in, week out, we hear of children waiting for mental health assessments and other assessments but we simply do not have the staff to do that and we cannot retain the staff we have. It is a grave injustice. The Minister needs to unwind FEMPI once and for all.

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