Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I meant to say at the outset that, with the permission of the House, I want to clarify something. I wish to correct the record of the House on a technical matter. In Tuesday's speech I referred to the Public Service Pay and Pensions Bill as a money Bill. The Bills Office has since confirmed this is not technically correct. While a money message in respect of the imposition of a charge on public moneys and a financial resolution in respect of the imposition of a charge on the people were required for the Bill, it does not meet the technical definition of a money Bill.

I acknowledge and appreciate what the Senator has said on what we want to do. As I said in the other House and here the other night, none of us has a monopoly when it comes to the concern we have for the unwinding of FEMPI. It was an instrument at the time that had to be used in a fairly drastic situation. It is about affordability and order. We want to do both together and, as I said on Second Stage, we are committed as a Government to making sure it is done and we are committed to working with the trade union movement and its representatives through the structures of the agreement.

As I said to Senator Burke earlier, it is the ambition of the Government that everybody would be covered by this. We do not want to see a situation where anybody is outside but, by the same token, if we go back to 1987 when we had the Programme for Economic and Social Progress talks and all of the collective agreements that came out of it, it is an agreement between the trade union movement and its public services committee and the Government. We hope everybody will be able to avail of it. We do not want anybody to feel he or she cannot be part of this. At the same time, we have to acknowledge the vast majority of public servants in the State have voted to accept it. Even within those unions which have not voted to accept it, there are large groups that have voted to accept it. It is a reflection of the democratic process at play within the workplace.

As I said to Senator Burke, we have a sincere ambition that, ultimately, everybody will be covered by the scope of the agreement, and what the legislation simply does is to reiterate the fact it is an agreement. There are those who agreed and there are those who did not agree, but we hope as a Government that everybody will accept the will of the majority, a very clear majority in this case, and that we get to a situation where from 1 January we are able to reward everybody. This is our mission and this is what we want to do. We want to be in a situation, with the amount of money we have and all of the competing resources and demands, to get rid of this legislation. Nobody wants to see it continuing to be around, but we have to do it in an orderly way and it has to be by agreement. This is the basis on which the Bill is being proposed.