Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We should not forget that the FEMPI legislation was emergency legislation introduced to tackle the onset of the financial crisis of 2008, when we saw the first permanent cut in public service pay rates in the history of the State. Here we are almost 13 years on and the legislation is still in place. Today we face a crisis of a very different kind and the emergency measures that were introduced to tackle a very different crisis cannot be used to tackle this one. Is the Minister planning to slowly unwind the legislation in the future and remove the more draconian parts of it while keeping other parts he considers necessary? Will the Minister tell us prior to that, which parts will be removed and which retained, and what is the rationale behind such decisions? I would urge the Minister to do so.

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