Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I remind Deputy McDonald and the House that we have a public sector pay deal, not just with nurses but with all public servants. That pay deal was only negotiated and agreed a few months ago and its cost is €400 million this year, another €400 million next year and €650 million the year after that. The deal comes at considerable expense to the taxpayer, is about at the limit of what can be afforded and has cost a lot of money already. It is important to remind the House of what is in the pay deal agreed with all of our public servants. It includes a pay increase of approximately 7% over the period of the deal, with a pay increase next year for all staff and a special additional pay increase for low-paid staff earning less than €30,000. It also includes an extra pay increase in March for staff recruited after 2012 to bring their salary scales more in line with those of staff recruited before then. The deal provides an increment for the vast majority of public servants next year and in addition to that, €20 million has been set aside for targeted recruitment and retention measures for the nursing and midwifery professions. That is what has already been offered, agreed and promised and is on the table. We will honour that agreement in full.

We are happy to engage with the nursing unions, of which there are three - SIPTU, the PNA and the INMO. We are very happy to engage with all three of the unions that represent nurses and will do that in the way that we have always done in the past, namely, through the oversight group for the public service stability agreement, as agreed and, if necessary, through bodies such as the Workplace Relations Commission and the Labour Court. That is how industrial relations are handled and have been handled very well in this State for decades. That is what we will continue to do but we must bear in mind that this is an agreement that applies to all public servants and we will honour it.

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