Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 53: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if there have been any formal or informal requests made to him to secure a salary in excess of €200,000 for the Secretary General of the Department of Finance position due to be filled on Kevin Cardiff's departure to the European Court of Auditors. [3790/12]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Neither I nor my officials have received a request to make an exception to the current annual pay rate of €200,000, established for Secretaries General in Departments generally in regard to the appointment of a Secretary General to the Department Finance.

The Deputy will be aware that the rates for new appointments as Secretary General in respect of all Departments were reduced following my review of salary rates for public servants in June of last year. Following my review the Government accepted my proposal to establish a pay ceiling of €200,000 for appointments to the most senior positions in the public service. The annual rate of €200,000 established for the Secretary General in the Department of Finance reflects the key role and responsibilities that post holds in the public service and represents an appropriate balance between the need identified following my review to moderate salaries in senior public service posts while maintaining remuneration rates that will attract and fairly remunerate the necessary skills and experience to support the restoration of our economic sovereignty.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Above all else what has astonished me most about the Minister, as a Minister with responsibility for reform, is the dogged manner in which he has defended very high pay rates in the public sector. The ESRI, the OECD and others were quoted earlier by Deputy Stephen Donnelly. The Minister will probably also be aware of a 2011 document published by the IPA. Not alone does it reflect that we have run away rates for those in the upper echelons but it also reflects that the pay gap between the higher levels and the lower levels within the public sector are enormous and much greater than within the EU-15. I do not believe the Minister is serious about tackling very high pay. A Secretary General should not earn €200,000 at a time when the State is insolvent, we are all in crisis and we are told that we are all in this together.

I am glad the Minister has confirmed that in this instance he will not breach the pay ceiling, albeit hugely high, in respect of the replacement in the Department of Finance. The Minister will have to forgive me because my confidence in his commitment to this issue was shattered by the fact that we discovered, courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act, that in respect of his own adviser, the Minister had sought to break the pay ceiling he proposed be established. He has come into this House to defend very high pay levels. He has repeatedly quoted that the salaries of Secretaries General have fallen from €285,000 to €200,000, while not reflecting the scandal that they were on €285,000 to begin with. He has told us that he is all in favour of dealing with runaway pay rates for those in the upper echelons, yet he by his own actions has defied that.

When the issue of pay in the public service is raised, I want to it to be clear that I and others do not refer to clerical officers or young teachers. The Minister knows precisely to whom we refer.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The Deputy obviously believes there is political capital in touting out the notion of I somehow defend top level pay when the truth by any objective criterion, it that nobody has reduced top level pay more than I have in one year. No Minister with responsibility for the public service has ever reduced top level pay across the public service more than I have. The Deputy knows she is talking poppycock in relation to that.

Unlike the Deputy opposite, I am a passionate supporter of the public service. The Deputy wants public service pay rates to be reduced to some low average so that we do not actually attract the expertise we need. That flies in the face of all the expert analysis of failure that has occurred. If the Deputy reads any of the objective analysis of the Department of Finance by Nyberg or anybody else, she will see that they state that there was a critical lack of experts and expertise. People say we need more economists, lawyers and legal experts within the public service but she would have all of those driven out of the public service to allow us, I suppose, buy them in from the private sector because that is the only way we could do it, and thereby dumb down the public service. I will not do that. That is not the view of this Government, but we will moderate all salaries, and we have taken a significant step towards starting that in a way that has not happened ever before. There is no thinking about that. That is a fact. We have reduced the top level of pay, maintained public services and not had strikes in a way that has not been done previously. There is more work to be done in this area, as I indicated in my reply to Deputy Donnelly, but Deputy McDonald might be slightly gracious occasionally in acknowledging the work done to date in this regard.

Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Has Deputy McDonald a brief question?

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I do not accept the Minister's L'Oreal defence of overpaid public servants that somehow they are worth it.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

That is another sound bite.

Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

It must be borne in mind that these are the very characters who were being paid huge sums of money when this State was sleep-walking into the crisis in which we find ourselves. I am glad the Minister has clarified the matter and I take it the incoming Secretary General for the Department of Finance will not be another case study in breaking the Minister's own pay ceilings.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context

There is an implication in the very nature of the question, namely, if the Minister had been requested to increase the salary, that I had been so requested. There was not a request, and it will fall within the pay norms. I did not get a chance to talk about my special adviser, which the Deputy has raised now in three extraneous questions, but I hope we will reach the question so that I can answer that too.