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

The State is a good employer, and the State has been a good employer during the Covid-19 pandemic. That is, of course, a reflection of the work our public servants have been doing. We now have a public service with around 346,000 people working within it. As part of the budget which we brought forward last month, we have provided for an increase in the number of people employed across the public service of the order of 22,000, with the majority of those being in the area of health, given the decision we made to permanently increase the capacity in our health service.

These are not, however, normal times. It requires two parties to negotiate and, ultimately, reach an agreement. I am conscious that time is tight between now and the end of the year. As the Deputy is aware, just last month we honoured the final leg of the public service stability agreement, PSSA. The exploratory talks are at a pretty intensive stage. It will become clear reasonably shortly, hopefully, as to whether there is a basis for meaningful and formal talks at official level. If those talks do take place they can, potentially, be concluded quickly. Then, as the Deputy said, a process of ratification is required, and I am conscious of that. I am also factoring that into the timeline.

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