Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State will recall that in October 2018, he told me that a joint submission had been made and that it went to the Public Service Pay Commission. In January 2019, the Minister of State contradicted himself by mentioning the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and what we have learned since is that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform had the report that was jointly signed off by the Department and military management for up to three months.

It does not augur well that a report that has been jointly prepared is diluted, amended or changed when it runs through the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and it is worrying for any cohort of public sector workers to see the intervention of that Department. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, admitted to me in recent weeks that he had interfered and involved himself in that process, which undermines the independence and integrity of the Public Service Pay Commission if we have the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform involving itself in and amending the recommendations or the submission that is made from the Department of Defence and from military management.

I want the Minister of State to clarify why he said in the Dáil that it had gone to the Public Service Pay Commission in October when it had not and when in fact it went in December. Why did the Minister of State not inform the Dáil in October that it would go to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform? Why did the Minister of State withhold that information at the time? Why is the deadline now being pushed out into the middle of this year or whenever when the Minister of State had given a previous commitment about quarter four of last year for the Public Service Pay Commission report?

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