Patrick Nulty (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 209: To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of public service employees that have incomes within the following parameters: 0 - €20,000, €20,001 - €40,000, €40,001 - €60,000, €60,001 - €80,000, €80,001 - €100,000, and more than €100,000. [37624/11]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that the latest relevant sector-based information available on employees taxed under the PAYE system is derived from income tax returns filed for the income tax year 2009 and represents about 96 per cent of all returns expected at the time the data were compiled for analytical purposes. The figures include PAYE taxpayers who are required to return an income tax return Form 11 where non-PAYE income is greater than €3,174, and do not segregate earnings from public sources and those from other sources. Therefore, the earnings figures shown may include income from non-public-sector sources.

The data also include various forms of income from public sources to groups that would not normally be regarded as being employed within the public service, e.g. those receiving fees, those on State Boards etc. On the basis of the available tax-based data it is not possible to identify and exclude income from public sources to groups that would not normally be regarded as employed within the public service or to distinguish the earnings of employees associated with atypical work patterns. Accordingly, it is likely that the number of lower paid public servants is overstated. On this basis the total numbers of public sector employees, and the breakdown of those numbers by income ranges, is set out as follows:

The earnings data in the table relate to 2009 and do not reflect the pay reduction introduced for public servants from January 2010 (ranging from 5% to 20%) or the subsequent measures introduced by the current Government further reducing the pay of Office Holders and introducing a general pay ceiling of €200,000 for future appointments to higher positions across the public service, a general pay ceiling of €250,000 for future appointments to CEO posts within Commercial State Companies and a voluntary waiver system of up to 15% for current post holders who have salaries in excess of the relevant pay ceiling.