Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Government seems to have brought an end to the process of overall public pay deals by conducting a series of bilateral negotiations in Croke Park II. Some sections of this Bill give it potential for further negotiations. This could appear to favour particular unions over others. There seems to be no overall decision, strategy or vision in respect of this, which may have a long-term impact on industrial relations. Industrial relations in the public sector have been quite good and public servants, as the Minister has said, have put up with a significant amount of cuts in the past few years. When he entered Government, the Minister was among the first to acknowledge that these cuts were necessary. He has since described the original pay cuts legislation - let us call these measures what they are instead of giving them nicknames or initials because the pension cuts were pay cuts - as an important part of stabilising the economic situation of this country. In 2011, when the Government was claiming all the credit for stabilising the fiscal situation, it ignored the fact that it had opposed many of the measures. Many of the measures mentioned by the Minister today were opposed by him when he was in opposition.

What is worrying is that the Government seems to be much more concerned about reducing the public sector pay bill than in improving the delivery of public services. The Minister made great mention of listening to the concerns of the Alliance of Retired Public Servants and asserted that it was not consulted by the previous Government. I certainly met it and I know that many Members of the Dáil met it at the time. I am certain that Ministers met with various pensioner groups at the time. I would be interested in finding out whether no meetings took place because the groups made a huge noise at the time and were very organised. I would be very surprised to hear that no formal meetings were held but I have no doubt that they may have met with Ministers in an informal setting at the time.

Section 2 of the Bill seems to give any Minister very wide powers in respect of staff under the aegis of his Department. The Minister is saying that it does not change anything and that this power to fix terms and conditions is already there. If that power is already there, why do we need a specific provision in law to allow the Minister to change terms and conditions? The fact is that any employer can fix terms and conditions if the employee agrees to them but no employer can break the terms of a contract. The Minister mentioned high public sector pensions and salaries. We are constantly told these cannot be cut. It seems always to come down to contract law. We cannot cut the pay of doctors or pharmacists by more than a certain amount because contract law seems to be supreme. Yet, the Government asserts that the Oireachtas has the power to bring in a provision that will allow a Minister to effectively cut the pay and change the conditions of public servants as he or she wishes. Giving Ministers that power is very dangerous for democratic accountability. In recognition and in honour of the work public servants do, such matters should be brought before the Oireachtas. The Oireachtas is well used to dealing with reductions in public sector pay. It is good that the consultation has taken place over the past few weeks and months, that unions were involved and that the Croke Park II talks took place because the Government got its answer and had to go back to look for a fairer system for the majority of workers. Here we are doing something that is most novel and unfair and we will certainly oppose giving Ministers this power. This power should be left with the Oireachtas. When we make laws to cut public sector pay, they have always been couched as one-off financial emergency measures. Well we have had five of them. If we must couch major pay cuts as financial emergency measures that are just taken in times of economic crisis, can we then give the power to a Minister to alter terms and conditions of employment?