Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This is the starting rate for anybody starting in An Garda Síochána. That is the basic pay, not taking account of allowances.

In respect of pensions, one of the first things I did was to create a single pension scheme for all public servants, including Members of the Oireachtas and judges. Every public servant recruited after 1 January 2013 is part of a single pension scheme. That took me a year, from 2011 to 2012. We estimate that will save approximately 35% in the cost and has brought down the liability of the State to approximately €98 billion from considerably above €100 billion. That was an important move.

Several Senators raised the two-tier pay such that new recruits started at 10% less. I am phasing that out. The Haddington Road agreement, section 2.31, puts in place an agreed process to resolve that. We needed to legislate for that in respect of the Judiciary. I have incorporated into this proposal a mechanism to equalise judicial pay as I have for teachers’, nurses’ and civil servants’ pay in the same way. They will progress very quickly to a common pay scheme. There was discordance in having a separate pay scheme. It was an emergency measure and I can understand why it was done when it was done to try to reduce cost.

Senator Norris raised a point about teachers’ pay generally, which was passionately reinforced by the last two speakers. The OECD compared pay scales of teachers across OECD countries and said Irish teachers are among the best paid teachers in the OECD. The figures, which were published very recently-----