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

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. Following on from my exchange with Deputy Michael Collins, I wish to reiterate the position of the Government. The Government is committed to addressing this issue in the coming weeks and we do not want to allow it to drag on. We have a clear recommendation from the Labour Court, which we intend to abide by, and we will deal with this in the coming weeks. There are a range of factors that we need to take into account. We have a public sector pay deal and that will involve, as the Deputy knows, an increase in public service pay on 1 October. I have put on the record some of the costs involved with the claim that was brought forward by the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, INMO, and the other healthcare worker union representatives. That includes a minimum cost of €377 million but with the inclusion of overtime and the need to deploy agency staff to fill the particular service gaps that would arise in giving the extra holidays, the cost would probably be over €500 million. That excludes the people the Deputy referred to, including bus drivers; members of the Irish Prison Service; gardaí; members of the Defence Forces; and our civil servants who worked so hard over the period to process emergency payments and so on.

The Government wants to be fair in how it approaches this issue. We have incurred a large increase in our national debt over the course of the pandemic because we have done our best to look after people by way of income supports and to keep businesses going. We are seeing the benefits and fruits of that in the way the economy is rebounding very strongly. We recognise that there is a need to address this, we intend to do so in the coming weeks and we will consult with others as to the best way to do that. We are also examining the approach taken in other countries. A number of other countries have made efforts in this direction and we are looking at what they have done. We need to be fair, balanced and as inclusive as we possibly can be to recognise the efforts that so many made to help our country get through a very dark period in the last 18 months.

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