Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To be fair, we have been calling for this for years. It is embarrassing for Senator Kieran O'Donnell to have to admit that six years into a Government he supports, there is still no commitment for the M20 project. A senior businessperson in Limerick told me that if we get approval later this year, it will be ten years - a decade - before that road is in place. That is the record and I have to say it is a record of failure on behalf of Fine Gael. There should be no excuses for that. Yes, of course, we call for the M20 project, as I think everyone in Limerick does. However, the fact of the matter is that Limerick was forgotten for the last six years.

In regard the Public Service Pay Commission, although it was set up as a delaying tactic, it nonetheless threw up some interesting statistics. Local authority employment fell by 21% from 2008 to 2013 and has barely grown since. This is a staggering drop for any sector but this one is concentrated on providing the type of shared services that make communities work. The shortfall has been filled through agency and contract workers. This means that the Government is actually paying more in wages now than it was in 2008 but this is hidden as the wages now come from two different budgets - direct employment and so-called procurement and emergency spend. The trade unions, in particular my own union, SIPTU, have been campaigning for years to get proper employment back into our local authorities but, again, without success to date. I hope the Minister will begin to listen to the trade unions.

In terms of health, more than half of all student nurses leave the system on graduation. Some 7,500 graduate nurses have gone to Britain in the past six years and there are 3,200 fewer nurses working in Ireland today than in 2008. That is the record of this Government. There is a similar turnover in the Defence Forces, while tensions within schools between pre-2011 and post-2011 teachers have spilled over into industrial action. The same issue led to the threat of the first national strike of An Garda Síochána in the history of the State, one that was only called off at the last minute.

The inability of the Government to provide a viable career path to our young people entering public service - be it in nursing, in teaching or in uniform - is an absolute scandal. My party recognises the importance of this issue and that is why we have made equal pay for equal work a red-line issue. Previous Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael-led Governments took an axe to public sector pay. They created and sustained a two-tier pay structure and reduced pay and terms and conditions of employment for public sector workers. Sinn Féin has long argued for a socially just and economically sustainable unwinding of FEMPI cuts. The core of any new pay agreement has to be to restore the public sector to a single-tier pay structure and re-establish the principle of equal pay for equal work.

In conclusion, Sinn Féin believes that a fresh agreement needs to prioritise pay restoration for those earning less than €65,000, with pay increases for the low paid. The days of unfair agreements that widen the pay gap and create pay inequality must come to an end.