Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday the Government signed off on an obscene €81,000 pay increase for a top civil servant which will see the incoming Secretary General in the Department of Health earning €292,000 a year, or ten times the salary of a nurse starting out on the front line fighting Covid. There was no process or rationale for this obscene pay hike. At the time the Government said it was necessary in order to attract the best and the brightest to apply for the post. Lo and behold, the best and brightest were there all along under its nose. This is a stroke, a try on and a kick in the teeth to workers right across the public and private sectors. The incoming Secretary General has now said he will temporarily waive the €81,000 pay hike, but the truth is that it should not be waived; it should be cancelled. This pay hike is obscenely wrong. I challenge the Taoiseach to withdraw it, and to do so immediately.

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