Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 377: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism the budgeted cost to his Department for 2009 of incremental pay increases for all staff in and under the aegis of his Department; the comparative cost for each year from 2002 to date in 2008; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46980/08]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The estimated cost of incremental pay increases for staff in the Department in 2008 and 2009 is set out as follows:

The Department did not retain figures for the annual cost of incremental increases in the past as there was no specific budgetary provision within the overall payroll provision to cover such increases. The rationale for this is based on the principle that the overall cost of increments for staff should be offset by reductions in costs arising from the retirement or other movements of staff at higher points on pay scales and their replacement by staff at lower points.

The figure for 2009 is calculated on the basis of existing staff in the Department but the final figure will be impacted, inter alia, by further staff turnover in the context of finalising the decentralisation of the Department to Killarney in early 2009.The cost of incremental pay increases for the agencies under the remit of the Department is a matter for each agency to be met from within their particular pay budget allocation.