Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

-----if they were getting full-time work but the issue will not be resolved on the pay side.

In response to Senator Norris, it seems to me that these protections in some people’s eyes do not apply to politicians, that they apply to everybody else. I am not accepting the amendments in respect of picking out politicians or anybody else because I believe the Haddington Road agreement cuts imposed on people earning over €65,000 were done in a very fair way, picking a reasonable salary below which nobody was affected by additional wage cuts although they were asked to work additional hours and that is why in the restoration of it I have to be mindful of that too. Everybody will have pro ratarestitution and I am not going to parse and analyse categories of people and say some public servants are worthy, some are not. My successor might feel differently about this. Even if the sins of the past are ascribed to some I am not going to say they are not worthy. That would be not only an invidious but an unconstitutional position for a Minister to take. If the day comes when a political party or a government should determine who is worthy or not, that would be a dangerous, slippery slope which I hope we would avoid. Maybe that is the view taken by Senator Reilly’s party, although I do not want to sound contrarian. I hope in terms of this set of amendments that I have said enough to assuage people’s concerns.

I will return to the Garda structure.