THE GOVERNMENT has said all top-level staff in the Civil Service who are currently earning more than €200,000 have agreed to accept pay cuts that were announced yesterday.
The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Brendan Howlin, said last night that he expected this to be replicated across the public service.
At its meeting on Tuesday, the Cabinet decided that a pay ceiling of €200,000 should be put in place for all new appointments in the public service, which includes the Civil Service, local authorities, the HSE and the education sector, as well the judiciary.
The Government has also set a maximum of €250,000 for the chief executives of commercial State companies appointed in the future.
For current incumbents (other than the judiciary) whose pay is in excess of the proposed ceilings, the Government is to seek voluntary waivers of salary of 15 per cent, or by a lesser amount if the application of the full 15 per cent reduction would bring the pay levels of such individuals to below the new thresholds.
There are also to be significantly lower pay scales for new members of the judiciary. The pay of the next chief justice will be 31 per cent lower than the current rate. New Supreme Court and High Court judges will also receive 31 per cent less than the current rate. New Circuit Court and District Court judges will receive 28 per cent and 25 per cent less respectively.
There is currently a constitutional ban on reducing the pay of serving judges; however, this will be the subject of a referendum later in the year.
Yesterday the Government said that all secretaries general in Government departments who currently earned more than €200,000 had agreed to the lower pay scales. This will see the pay levels for the secretaries general in the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Finance – who are categorised as level 1 secretaries general – at €181,050 after the pension levy.
In 2008, staff in these posts received €285,341.
The Government has also set new rates that commercial State companies can pay their chief executive officers in the future.
Only in the case of the ESB has the Government broken its own new salary ceiling of €250,000. The recommended new starting salary for the next chief executive of the ESB will be €318,083.
In the case of four other commercial organisations – An Post, CIÉ, the Dublin Airport Authority and RTÉ – the Government has recommended a salary rate of more than €200,000.
However, in exceptional cases the Government will allow the new ceilings to be breached, provided it gives its approval in advance.
In a statement, Mr Howlin said: “In imposing the pay ceilings for new appointees, the Government recognises that in a small number of cases exceptions may be necessary. Such exceptions will be limited to instances where the exception is for a role of substantial importance in the public service or a commercial State company and the person whose appointment is sought brings exceptional or scarce expertise and/or qualifications to the proposed role.”
Any such exceptions are subject to prior approval by the Minister.
Mr Howlin said yesterday that he would like to see “full transparency” in relation to the proposed voluntary 15 per cent pay waiver.
The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform said that staff in non-commercial State bodies such as the HSE, local authorities or education sectors who earned more than €200,000 would also be asked to take a voluntary 15 per cent pay cut. However, hospital consultants, a small number of whom earn more than €250,000 a year, would not be covered by the new pay reforms.