David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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7. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the savings and efficiencies his Department has highlighted in order to fund the decision to move forward to the earlier date of 1 April 2017 the partial pay restoration due to public sector workers earning less than €65,000; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3273/17]

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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8. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will report on his recent decision to approve increases in annualised salaries in the public service for the period from 1 April 2017 to August 2017; the way in which he is providing for the reported €120 million cost of the increase; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3280/17]

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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26. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the estimated cost in 2017 to bring forward to April 2017 a €1,000 per annum pay increase for public servants; the proposed savings and efficiencies he plans to make to provide the funding for these increases; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3266/17]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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29. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the source of the money to bring forward pay restoration for public sector workers earning below €65,000; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3416/17]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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32. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the extent to which he expects to be in a position to meet the costs associated with all recent pay agreements while maintaining the principles of the Lansdowne Road and other agreements and remain within budgetary targets; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3419/17]

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister has been asked repeatedly to outline to Members of this House where he will find the savings and efficiencies necessary to meet the €120 million cost of the partial pay restoration for public servants earning below €65,000. That restoration is welcome but we need to know the detail of how the moneys will be found. There is a concern that the Government will cut services to fund the cost of the pay restoration. When the Minister says the increase will be paid for through efficiencies and savings, he has a responsibility to spell out what exactly he means by that.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 7, 8, 26, 29 and 32 together.

I have a responsibility, which I will discharge across the year, to put in place measures that bring certainty in respect of the public service pay bill for 2017. I am confident that if I had not taken this measure, Deputy Cullinane would be criticising me on that basis. I have adopted a particular measure and explained the process by which I will identify the funding for it, funding which is less than the amount of savings I identified in 2016. Across the year, through the reviews that are ongoing in my Department in the run-up to budget 2018 and in advance of the publication of the various papers that form part of the budgetary process, I will deal with this matter. Deputy Cullinane welcomed the progress we have made in this area. If I had not made this intervention, I would be subject to criticism today on that head.

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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We had a lengthy discussion at the budgetary oversight committee about how the €120 million cost of the pay restoration will be met. I was not able to stay for the end of the Minister's contribution but there was grave dissatisfaction with his explanation in that regard. There was extensive discussion with Deputies Cullinane and Pearse Doherty about savings and efficiencies but the Minister did not shed much light on exactly how the moneys will be found. We welcome the restoration of the savage cuts in public sector pay since 2009. However, the Minister seems to be saying that if he had not taken this measure, he would have been facing even greater expenditure later in the year in the wake of the Labour Court finding on Garda pay. Did he seek any advice from the newly-established Public Service Pay Commission before coming to his decision?

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The point is that we do not accept the Minister must rob Peter to pay Paul. Workers are entitled to pay restoration, even in excess of the proposed €1,000, but we do not accept that money should be taken from services to fund that. We are seeking a commitment that services which are starved of funding will not be hit as a result of this measure. The Minister likes to ask where else the money will come from. We are tired of telling him that his envelope is too small because he consistently resists our appeals to him to look elsewhere for additional revenue. Additional moneys could be found by making the vulture funds and companies like Apple pay their taxes, by introducing a financial transaction tax, and by obliging landlords and higher earners to pay more taxes. There is plenty of money to be had and it should be used to redistribute the wealth in this country in a fair way, which allows us both to fund public services and give public sector and other workers decent pay levels.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Broughan asked whether I sought input from the Public Service Pay Commission on this matter. I did not do so because the terms of reference of that body refer exclusively to the potential for and aftermath of a replacement to the Lansdowne Road agreement. It would not, therefore, have been appropriate to ask the commission's view on this matter. Regarding the Deputy's analysis of why I chose to take this particular action, there is much truth in the point he makes. I had a very substantial concern that if the Government found itself in a position, in the course of the year, of having to deal with a set of competing sectoral pay claims, that would have completely undermined our plans for public pay for the second half of this year and the costs thereof, which would have had extremely serious consequences for service delivery.

In fairness to Deputy Boyd Barrett, he is unusual in always sketching out the ways in which he proposes to raise additional moneys. However, where he and I differ is in my view that all the revenue-raising measures he is suggesting would have negative consequences which would, in turn, affect the performance of our economy, security of jobs and our ability to pay for public services. The Deputy referred to Apple but made no mention of the fact that company employs thousands of people in this country. In referring to financial services he did not allude to the tens of thousands of Irish people employed in that sector and that multinational investment is a core part of how we provide employment throughout the State. There are alternative sources of income but implementing the measures the Deputy is proposing would undermine the kind of revenue and economic growth we need to pay for the public services improvements we wish to see.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister should act in the manner in which he would expect the Opposition to act. If I were to come into this House and put forward a proposal that cost €120 million, the Minister would ask how I proposed to pay for it. If I responded that it should be collected through general savings and efficiencies, I would be laughed out of the Chamber, as would any of my Opposition colleagues. We are obliged to line-item and cost every single proposal, down to the cent, that we suggest. The Minister seems to think he can operate in a different set of circumstances, merely having to waltz in and announce a cost of €120 million for this particular measure. I agree with the decision on pay restoration but this is about having a process and ensuring the Minister is accountable. He has not offered us one line item showing how a single cent in savings will be achieved apart from general broad-brush references to savings and efficiencies. That is not good enough. It is not appropriate to treat the Oireachtas and the committee which has responsibility for budget oversight in that way. I am asking the Minister to do what he asks us on this side of the House to do by offering a detailed outline of how the moneys will be found.

Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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The Minister is telling us he has a package of a quantum of savings and efficiencies that will enable him to implement the pay restoration. However, we have a responsibility to ask the questions we are asking. If the Minister were in our position - even if he agreed with our proposal, as we do with his - he would want to know how exactly it was proposed to do it. Does he intend, for example, to rely on tax buoyancy and the expectation the tax take will be ahead of target as the year develops? Has he factored in how this measure will impact on overall spending throughout the year and into the following years? We spoke at the committee about issues like inflation and increasing staff numbers in the public sector. Will the Minister give us concrete answers to the questions we have raised?

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Budget 2017 included a figure for efficiencies, counter-fraud, anti-fraud and so on. There was some discussion at the time about the fact the social welfare changes would only come into force in March. The cost to bring them all forward to the beginning of the year was stated as being in the region of €60 million. There were no additional savings or efficiencies achieved last October or November but now we are to accept they will suddenly become available during the course of this year. I support the principle of what the Minister is doing but like my colleagues on the right-----

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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On the left.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Is that literally or figuratively?

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I agree with what the Minister is trying to do but what I do not agree with and what is not fair to Members is the ambiguous way in which these figures are being produced. The savings involved are additional to those already identified in the budget for 2017 that was introduced last October. There was not €60 million available to bring forward social welfare payments to the beginning of January but now there is €120 million for this initiative. The issue is the identification of the detail and clarity on from where those funds are coming.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I call Deputy Boyd Barrett.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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I am sorry; I had a lot of making up to do.

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Let us be clear. I want to see pay restoration and a hell of a lot more of it. I was talking to some of the service officers in here and they are nearly crying as a result of some of the pay levels they have to put up with. They need this pay. What I do not like, which was implicit in what the Minister said, is that it is essentially one or the other - it is services that are cash starved or it is pay. We do not accept that. We want the details, which the Minister would expect of us, as Deputy Cullinane said. It is not just hypothetical. We have been laughed at and ridiculed by the Minister when we put forward other tax revenue-raising proposals. He said they was nonsense, that he wanted costings and that they would destroy the economy and so on. The Minister insists on detail and he is not prepared to provide any such detail. As a result, we are concerned that this is a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The Minister has an obligation to tell us from where the money is coming.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I will make three points. Since I made this announcement, I have outlined that I would put in place the measures and decisions to ensure that services are not affected as a result of doing this. I welcome that all Deputies have agreed with the decision I made and indicated that it was an appropriate response to the matter that developed in the aftermath of the Labour Court recommendation. In line with the commitments I have to the Oireachtas in 2017 on the publication of the work that is necessary in advance of budget 2018, I will identify the choices I will make to deliver this funding while not reducing service commitments to citizens.

I will conclude by responding to the point Deputy Curran made. I remind him that this issue developed in the aftermath of the budget in October. The Labour Court recommendation and the consequences of it for gardaí happened after the budget was presented to the House. If I had stood up in the House and presented higher figures for public pay than were agreed in the Lansdowne Road agreement, I would have been asked by the Deputy and other colleagues why we were changing assumptions on public pay under the Lansdowne Road agreement and why we were asking the House to sanction people being paid more. That would not have been the appropriate thing to do at that point. In 2017, as we move through the management of a budget of €58 billion, I will identify how I will deliver the commitments I have laid out.