The Minister for Finance today defended the decision taken by his department before Christmas to minimise the pay cuts for senior civil servants by counting performance bonuses as pay.
Speaking this morning, Brian Lenihan said the issue concerned a "very restricted grade" of assistant secretaries and equivalent grade in some other organisations.
"The bonuses were abolished already, and if you take the effect on them of a much higher-than-average pension levy, the abolition of bonuses, and the full impact of the recent cut . . . [this] would have left them more disadvantaged than any other public servant.
"This particular grade were found not to be paid more than in any other country, and a reduction has been imposed upon them, which it was believed . . . was a reasonable reduction for them," the Minister said.
"The Government took the view that it would be reasonable to make an exceptional arrangement for them, given all those anomalies. . . . There is no question of this being done in any clandestine way."
But Labour spokeswoman on finance Joan Burton said the Government's decision to apply a lower level of pay cut to certain senior civil servants was "immoral, unjust and legally dubious". She called for the decision to be revisited "at the earliest possible opportunity".
"The result of this decision will mean that some of the highest paid public servants in the state will suffer a cut of just 3 per cent in their basic pay, while low paid clerical officers will see their pay cut by 5 per cent. This approach will further undermine morale among low paid workers in the public service," Ms Burton said.
The Labour TD and Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton and intend raising the issue when the Dáil resumes on January 19th.
The general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) has today condemned the decision of the Government to "sneak in" de facto increases in basic pensionable pay for senior civil servants and others in the higher echelons of the Public Sector, including senior gardaí at deputy and assistant commissioner level.
"What has happened is that the Government made a highly principled and well publicised move to introduce pay cuts across the public service in the Budget and then sneaked in this U turn to conciliate a highly privileged group in the week before Christmas, in the hope that no one would notice", AGSI general secretary Joe Dirwan said today.
The AGSI executive is to discuss the move at its meeting next week.
