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

This dispute can be resolved but, as I explained previously, it can only be resolved in a way that is affordable for taxpayers and in a way that is fair to all other public servants with whom we also have a pay deal, and in a way that is fair and beneficial to patients. If those are the parameters, there is a very strong basis for engagement.

It is important to set out again what the pay deal we have with the INMO and all the other unions says. It runs until 2020. On the Government side, we have a responsibility to honour pay rises of approximately 7% during that period, restore pay for anyone earning less than €80,000 a year, and pay annual increments and special pay rises to low paid staff and new entrants recruited after 2012 and 2013. We will honour that agreement.

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