Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To be clear, if we were to repeal the suite of FEMPI legislation tomorrow then certain former public servants on quite high pensions would have the pension reductions that were imposed on them reversed immediately. In addition, all very senior public and civil servants, including politicians, would have the cuts that were imposed reversed overnight. We need to deal with this issue in a managed and phased way.

To return to the point made by the Deputy earlier, it is my objective to negotiate a new public service pay deal. It is in the interests of the State, the trade unions and the workers that they represent to have the certainty and stability of a new public service pay agreement. We are in difficult circumstances and it will not be easy to negotiate a successor agreement. We are in exploratory discussions at the moment with the trade unions and will see where that goes in the weeks ahead. As the Deputy said, the current deal runs up to the end of the year. We are seeing that deal through and part of that involves paying the 2% increase which, on balance, is the right thing to do.

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