Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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68. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the full remaining cost of ensuring that all public sector workers recruited on lower salary levels since 2011 are brought to pay levels that match colleagues at the same grade; and the way in which he plans to address this inequality. [38135/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Public Service Stability Agreement 2018-2020 (PSSA), provided that an examination of remaining salary scale issues in respect of post January 2011 recruits at entry grades would be undertaken within 12 months of the commencement of the Agreement and on conclusion of this work the parties would discuss and agree how the issues might be addressed under the terms of the PSSA.

Additionally, as the Deputy is aware, this Government accepted an amendment at Section 11 of the Public Service Pay and Pensions Act 2017, that within 3 months of the passing of the Act, I would prepare and lay before the Oireachtas a report on the cost of and a plan in dealing with pay equalisation for new entrants to the public service.

In accordance with the legislation I submitted a report to the Oireachtas on the 16th of March. As detailed in the Report, the costs are annualised and an increment date of 1 January is assumed to give the full one year cost for over 60,500 staff identified as new entrants. However, increment dates across the year vary significantly by individual and sector while salary scales and the structure of such scales across the public service as they affect individuals is not consistent. The report also quantified the cost of a two point adjustment as approximately €200m and the potential benefit to the individual as €3,301 on average.

In recognition of this, since the publication of the report, my Department, in support of the discussions between the parties, has engaged in further work to assess and model the potential budgetary implications and impacts through phasing of the overall quantum. This work is currently on-going.

Discussions on the issue with public service trade unions and representative associations, commenced in October 2017, with a further plenary meeting taking place on 27th of April last following the publication of the report. Further discussions are ongoing as the parties continue to work through the various aspects of this issue.