Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It should not happen. There is no economic justification for it. There are questions Dublin Bus management must answer, and it has not done so. An economic analysis carried out by the NTA in 2015 on Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann found satisfactory results. I am not sure what "satisfactory" means. If we are providing €100 million of taxpayers' money to Dublin Bus and the economic audits are only "satisfactory", questions are to be asked of the management. If there are to be pay increases, the taxpayer should not foot the bill. It would be wrong and would send us down a cul-de-sac from which there is no coming back.

There are issues around the future economic viability of Dublin Bus. This morning, I heard on the radio that it would be in a deficit situation by the end of the year. If this is the case, there is a need for an updated economic analysis of the company. The manner in which it deals with its employees will, hopefully, be resolved through the machinery of the State. When we talk about public sector pay, we also need to discuss performance and reward. The two are not mutually exclusive. If we are going to increase public sector pay, we must also ensure performance is closely linked to it. The performance factors which were built into Haddington Road, Croke Park and some of the other agreements have worked. Public servants are working and providing an excellent service and we must ensure they are rewarded for it.

We must change the mentality in the public sector that pay increases come but workers are not being rewarded for the extra they give. Public servants give extra every day of the week and they must be rewarded for it. We must build a system that acknowledges and recognises it. This is why my party supports the Government initiatives and we have made it a precondition of supporting the supply and confidence arrangement that a public sector pay commission would be established. It is absolutely crucial that it is done and that there is a filtration of rewarding performance across the public sector.

As politicians, we cannot seek support for constituents who are trying to get services from the State on the one hand and, on the other, try to reward poor performance. There must be some correlation between the two. The only way we can do it is by establishing a form of commission, not a rewarding body that would examine only one side. A much bigger picture must be examined. The Government, like any national government, does not have an infinite supply of resources given that the taxpayer must be penalised through taxation to provide those resources.

I agree with some of the motion and disagree with other elements of the Labour Party motion and, moreover, the Sinn Féin motion, given that I struggled to make sense of some of the Sinn Féin motion.