Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The whole point of Croke Park II was that allowances, and in some small cases, overtime but particularly allowances on weekends were the core pay of nurses. Core pay includes all of those things and they are the lessons to be learned. There must be severe doubts about whether section 2 is lawful. It is certainly news to me that a Minister has an existing power to reduce terms and conditions of employment. There is no doubt that he can fix them. There is no difficulty if the Minister wants to change working arrangements for the better and the employees agree. However, giving this power to a Minister is very dangerous and we need far greater scrutiny of this on Committee Stage.