Results 18,181-18,200 of 27,080 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 97. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if the forgoing of the pay rise for all public representatives as part of a Covid-19 solidarity measure will be agreed to; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26939/20]

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: On what planet is it okay for politicians earning extraordinarily high salaries - €96,000 in the case of Deputies - to get a pay increase when hundreds of thousands of workers have seen their incomes decimated or jobs completely eliminated as a result of Covid-19 and the measures the Government has imposed, and when the Government has cut the pandemic unemployment payments of many...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Covid emergency did not stop the Minister from giving a €16,000 increase to the super junior Ministers, which is absolutely outrageous. The ordinary public servants who were robbed to pay for the bailout of the banks should get their pay restored. Indeed, it should have been restored long before now but the idea that politicians on extraordinarily handsome salaries of...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Within People Before Profit our policy is that politicians should be paid the average industrial wage and that is what happens internally. That means we are in the same position as the people we represent and have a vested interest in representing the collective and not just looking after ourselves. That is our policy. In the case of the 2%, we will be handing it back to the Exchequer...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We are saying we should cut the pay of politicians. What we are doing with the 2% is that we are not taking it, but we do not think it should be a choice for the politicians to take it. In terms of the average industrial wage, we use that money as we pledged in our election manifesto in a very clear way. We pledged that we would take the average industrial wage, so I have not benefited one...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is the same question.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 98. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if the foregoing of the pay rise for all public representatives will be agreed to as part of a Covid-19 solidarity measure; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26722/20]

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: If the question is whether we should have a democratic discussion in this House about politicians' pay, where the public can listen in and, indeed, exercise influence on us about what the pay levels should be, then, yes, I think that would be preferable. If the public had a say in it, they would say that we are paid far too much and that it would be much better if our pay was linked to the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister does not seem to get the point. I was on the picket line with Debenhams workers the other day. They were sickened at the thought that people in this House were going to get a pay increase when their pandemic unemployment payments were going to be cut by those very people. Does the Minister understand why they would be sickened about a situation where they have been abandoned,...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have already put forward a proposal, as have others.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Pay (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is to link the pay of people in here to average industrial earnings. That is our proposal, that is our policy and that is what we campaigned for. I agree with the Minister on higher paid civil servants. That would also nauseate people. Low and middle-income earners, the vast bulk of public servants, were savaged with FEMPI but those cuts did not mean the same for the super-well-paid...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 101. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will consider the call from trade unions and civil society for a four-day week across the public sector; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26724/20]

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have a little luck for a change.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Fórsa trade union has launched a campaign to introduce a four-day week. It is something that people on the left, including trade unionists and socialists, have argued for a long time would be a good measure. It is even more appropriate now that we should consider introducing a four-day week given the pandemic and the vast numbers of people who have lost their jobs. I am keen to...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am unsure whether people remember this but when I was studying geography in school, amazingly, the geography book said that by the time we got to around now, the 2020s, the biggest problem society would have would be that because of technological advance, we would all be working a three-day week and we would be trying to figure out things to do in all our leisure time.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The suggestion was that technology would confer great benefits in respect of labour saving and increased productivity. We got all the increased productivity. However, instead of this improving the quality of life of workers, the opposite has happened. We even had, as part of the austerity programme, the infamous Lansdowne Road hours, adding hours rather than reducing them. I do not...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We are only working three days in here.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Many public servants are earning less now than they were ten years ago during austerity. They have not had their pay restored and they are working longer hours. Let us think about our nurses. They are overrun and underpaid and there is pay apartheid. The same is true for our teachers, and there is pay apartheid even for the service officers and ushers here in the House, who are paid...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Staff (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The question would have been moved if I had mentioned everybody else.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Public Sector Reform Review (29 Sep 2020)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 104. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his plans for a new drive for public service reform as mentioned in the programme for Government; if this will not include a slowdown in recruitment or an undermining of staffing levels; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26723/20]