Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will support the Minister of State if he gives our nurses and front-line healthcare workers the pay rise they deserve and gets rid of the absolutely shameful pay inequalities suffered by public servants at every level in the public service, where new entrants have to suffer the indignity of working on lower pay than people doing exactly the same job, just because they came in after a certain arbitrary date when austerity was imposed on them.

Whatever way the Minister of State cuts it, in the current climate where the Government is talking about cutting the pandemic payments for people who have lost jobs and income as a result of a public health crisis over which they have no control, and then to give junior Ministers a €16,000 increase is, to put it mildly, sending the wrong signals. To put it not so mildly, it is absolutely disgraceful. If the Minister of State wants equality at the Cabinet table perhaps the senior Cabinet Ministers might cut their pay a little to show leadership for people who are suffering out there and are on fractions of the salaries and wages they are on.

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