Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This is a difficult set of amendments to which to respond because not only were many of the contributions not germane to the amendments, they were not even germane to the Bill. Senators spoke with passion, but some of the issues raised were well outside the remit of my ministry. However, I will do my best to address them.

I will begin in a pedestrian manner by speaking to the amendments. All of the amendments boil down to one issue, namely, that nobody in receipt of a salary above €65,000 should receive one cent by way of pay restoration. That is what the amendments are about. The first amendment in the group provides for this, while the remainder are not necessary because there is no point in saying nobody earning more than €100,000 should have his or her pay restored because we have already said nobody earning more than €65,000 should enjoy pay restoration. Equally, there is no point in saying Ministers should not benefit from pay restoration for the same reason. I do not agree with this.

We have structured the reductions in a very progressive way. The only reductions in pay the Government of which I am a member introduced for the public service - there were two reductions before our time in office under previous FEMPI legislation - were for those earning more than €65,000. As part of the negotiated settlement, namely, the Haddington Road agreement, with which Senator Gerard P. Craughwell, in particular, will be familiar, the pay-back period was an intrinsic part of the settlement presented by the Labour Relations Commission and endorsed by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Government. I am not going to come before the House and accept a recommendation to break the terms of that agreement because that would completely undermine the basis for engagement with any union in the future. I do not recall any political party asking for such a straightforward reneging on a solemn agreement.Members might also recall that even the reductions in salaries above €65,000 were carried out on a progressive basis, ranging from 5.5% to 10%. The higher the pay, the greater was the impact. The Lansdowne Road agreement was the restoration element of it. That agreement is exclusively about restoration to the lower paid. Obviously, everybody gets something, but it is focused on the lower paid. On a percentage basis it hugely advantages the lower paid, as I promised it would do. That point is acknowledged by Senator Craughwell. However, I cannot ignore a pre-existing agreement, the Haddington Road agreement, which is what Senator Reilly is taking into account.

I will move to the more contentious issue of whether politicians should be excluded. There is a school of thought that if we all had sackcloth and ashes and went out on the plinth to flagellate ourselves, it would not be enough. I respect the business of politics, and I am sorry Senator Norris is not here at present. I am also in the business of hoping people will get involved in politics and get a decent living from it in a fair way, so they can afford to pay their way and maintain their families. I am a member of the Labour Party and I am mindful of the fact that one of the first measures sought by the Labour Party in Britain, when it was first elected to parliament early in the 20th century, was to have salaries for Members of Parliament, so it would not be an exclusive club for the landed gentry or the barristers, with all due respect to the barristers present, who could breeze in after hours. When I was first elected to the Oireachtas, the sitting hours were often designed to suit some of the professions, so its members could come to the Houses after hours.

That is not how a modern parliament works. Modern parliaments work on the basis of having decent remuneration appropriate to the skills set demanded for the job. Certainly, I would be interested to see the salary scales of the people I have been negotiating with in the trade union movement for the last time. There were many blanks in the newspapers yesterday, but perhaps we will find out what everybody is paid in the future. Transparency should be part of all of this.

Some people perceive that there is a political advantage in making that argument. It is not one that I make. It is actually protected by a more fundamental argument. Reducing people's pay or pension is an extraordinarily exceptional measure. As I have said repeatedly, it can only be justified by a set of circumstances, one of which is the existence of a financial emergency. That is the reason all of the legislation that does these things is called financial emergency legislation. Please God, and I am confident the day is not far away, there will be no justification for an emergency. This legislation will end entirely, and there will be full pay restoration for everybody when that day arrives. This matter has been repeatedly-----