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

That is why we have made this change. What the Deputy is not recognising in what he said is that austerity tends to be defined by reducing public expenditure and reducing pay. We are doing the opposite. We are increasing public expenditure and we are affordably increasing pay. Regarding what the Deputy said about retention and staffing difficulties, he is not acknowledging that, in the past number of years, we have increased the number of public servants we have working for the State and in our front-line services.

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