Recovery won’t be compromised by new pay deal, Howlin says

Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin has insisted the public sector pay deal struck with unions on Friday is not only affordable, but represents “the right thing to do”.

Mr Howlin was speaking to reporters in Dublin after the announcement of the Lansdowne Road Agreement, which he said would cost the State more than €566m over three years.

“I think what we want is a quality public service,” he said. “That means one that we pay at a reasonable rate. Nobody in the public service has had a pay rise. Everybody has had a pay cut. We now want to map out a path for pay recovery.

“It’s certainly affordable. I wouldn’t have tabled it if I wasn’t absolutely convinced, and my Government colleagues weren’t absolutely convinced, that not only is this affordable but it’s the right thing to do.”

Mr Howlin said prudence had been “the hallmark” of everything Government has done, and restoration of public sector pay would not jeopardise the recovery of the economy.

“The focus of the Government has been to address the issue of recovery of pay in the public services,” he said. “We wanted to do that in a way that focused on lower pay in the beginning to allow people who are at the margins of pay to get the greatest benefit.

“I’m greatly pleased that the agreement reached achieves that. It matches the requirement of Government for prudence, to ensure that all the work we’ve done to sustain a healthy economy is not put in jeopardy in any way.

“[It] will reward public servants for their loyalty to the State at the most difficult of times, set out a path of recovery for them, and at the same time maintain the really important innovation and reform agenda that my department in particular – but all agencies of state – have driven in the last number of years.”

He said he hoped each public sector union would ratify the agreement with its members expeditiously so legislation can be enacted in time for October’s budget. He also indicated his intention to begin the unwinding of infrastructure related to Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Fempi).

On the reforms and productivity measure that have been introduced, Mr Howlin said these were now “hardwired into how the public service will operate”.

Impact’s Niall Shanahan, acting as a spokesman for the Irish Congress of Trade Union’s public services committee, said the agreement “achieved the objective of fairness” and would result in an additional €2,000 in net pay for most public servants over two years.

“What we sought going into these talks was a flat rate pay increase, that essentially all public servants would achieve the same financial benefit and in so doing then that would disproportionately benefit lower paid public servants – that they would feel a greater benefit from a flat rate pay increase,” he said.

“The individual unions now will consult with their own executives ahead of a ballot of union members and most of those ballots I expect will take place during the month of June.”