Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will pick up from where I concluded yesterday evening. I was referring to the Government's honouring of the commitment made to public servants under the existing public sector pay agreement. I suggested that if we did not have an agreement in place, public servants and civil servants could well be targeted for pay cuts given the economic situation in which we find ourselves. Public sector pay agreements are important for industrial stability, for fairness in our public service, for future planning and in recognising the key role our public servants have played. Covid-19 should never be used as an excuse not to honour any agreements.

I mention in passing community employment supervisors who were crucial in the upskilling and reskilling of those who were out of work during the last crisis. They will play an equally if not even more important role in reshaping our economy and community response in the post-Covid-19 recovery. They make an invaluable contribution to our society but still do not have access to occupational pension schemes, which is a running sore in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform should have taken the opportunity in recent months to re-establish engagement with the unions representing community employment supervisors to ensure the recommendation that came from the Labour Court in 2007 is finally honoured.

The Revised Estimates presented earlier this year lacked clarity. We have seen big bailouts to big business without any conditions and expensive tax reliefs to higher earners despite strong evidence from the departmental officials that many of those schemes will be a deadweight loss. In the coming months with the budget and the proposed national economic plan it will be crucial in charting the Covid-19 recovery that we develop a new social contract for our citizens to give them hope for the future. We cannot go back to the broken model I mentioned in my remarks yesterday. We will need clarity on a public investment strategy that will build the required capacity in our public services - in housing, health and childcare - and put us on track to meet our climate emissions targets, and ultimately get people back to work to build a better and more sustainable post-Covid Ireland.

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