Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

The Senator will be pleased to hear that I would be totally opposed to such an initiative.

The bottom line of the Bill is that the public sector wage bill must be reduced. I was glad to see support for this from Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet yesterday. This Bill can be most accurately described as a pension related levy rather than a pension levy as such. It is a pity that, in this morning's discussion, there was not the same consciousness evident in last night's debate of the critical situation facing the Government finances. If we want to maintain jobs, we must cut the cost of them to some extent. I know how attached Senator O'Toole is, with almost paternal pride, to the benchmarking process and he remembers that I defended the process vigorously on many occasions when it was attacked in the previous Seanad. However, matters have altered considerably. There is no formal benchmarking involved in this but there is a relationship between the public and private sectors. The Government has no interest in divide and rule, setting public against private, as has been implied by some comments. It is trying to be as fair as possible to all sections of the community. For the sake of argument, if the Government was to withdraw this Bill and to make no attempt to cut the public sector wage bill, leaving aside the economic and confidence consequences, great arguments of fairness would arise.

The point was made by Dr. Garret FitzGerald on radio yesterday, and by several others that the total tax system is exceptionally favourable in this country. Employee PRSI is negligible in this country compared with most European countries. Married people up to a medium level of income are practically exempt from tax and deductions. Nowhere else is that the case and there are not enough people at the higher end of the spectrum to achieve the savings required and to raise the sums of money involved.

Senator Alex White raised the matter of how the figures are made up. One must distinguish between 2009 and a full year. In respect of 2009, the figure for the reduction in public service pay is €1,160 million, which includes €50 million for travel and subsistence reductions, reductions of €67 million in fees, reductions of €95 million in overseas development aid, reductions of €51 million in the early child care supplement, €140 million in administrative savings and €300 million in capital savings, making a total of €1.813 billion. The full year figure is somewhat above the €2 billion figure and includes €1.4 billion of public service pay, reductions in fees of €80 million, €95 million in overseas development aid, as before, €75 million in the early child care supplement, €140 million in administrative savings and €300 million capital savings, giving a total of €2.090 billion. These will be set out in the Revised Estimates, to be published shortly.

I do not totally disagree with the point that senior public servants are very well paid. I was asked how this compares with other countries. If one goes up the road to Northern Ireland, the most senior public servants, taking into account all pay and conditions, are to the best of my knowledge even better paid. That has been altered by the change in the relationship between sterling and the euro. Until recently they would have been ahead of public servants here. Speaking personally, I had some reservations about benchmarking as it applied to the top of the Civil Service.