The point has been made. I will let matters proceed.
Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages
SECTION 2
Debate resumed on amendment No. 20:
In page 6, line 24, column 2, to delete "9 per cent" and substitute "15 per cent".
I already had an opportunity to give a comprehensive response to the set of amendments with which we are dealing. The bottom line is that I have given the figures on the average private sector wages, which is €32,670. It is reasonable to pick double that figure, €65,000, as the income from which we can ask for an additional contribution. It is a small sub-set of all public servants, as I indicated, at 13%.
It would be difficult for us to bring in a reduction in pay and to exempt ourselves because, clearly, Deputies would come below the €100,000 threshold that is suggested opposite. Workers in the public sector would regard that as unacceptable.
Question, "That the words proposed to be deleted stand", put and declared carried.
Amendment declared lost.
I move amendment No. 21:
In page 6, line 26, column 1, after "€185,000" to insert "but not over €200,000".
Amendment put and declared lost.
I move amendment No. 22:
In page 6, line 26, column 2, to delete "10 per cent" and substitute "12 per cent".
Question, "That the words proposed to be deleted stand", put and declared carried.
Amendment declared lost.
Amendment No. 23 not moved.
I move amendment No. 24:
In page 6, between lines 26 and 27, to insert the following:
"
|
Any amount over €200,000 |
20 per cent |
"
Amendment put and declared lost.
Amendments Nos. 25 to 27, inclusive, are out of order.
Amendments Nos. 25 to 27, inclusive, not moved.
Amendments Nos. 28, 29 and 61 are related and may be discussed together by agreement.
I move amendment No. 28:
In page 6, line 35, after "may," to insert "by way of regulation by the Minister".
This is the nasty section of the legislation where the Minister is introducing a power to himself or to Ministers to make amendments less favourable in terms of remuneration of persons in respect of employment in the public service and also to provide for changes to their working time, whether by reference to the day or week. This should not be done but if it is to be done at all, in the interests of transparency I put down an amendment that it should be done by way of regulation or by statutory instrument.
If a Minister is making a concession in the education sector or the justice sector, it should be done by way statutory instrument rather than merely lodging it in the Labour Court. The Minister knows as well as I do that what is discussed in the Labour Court and industrial relations matters are exempt from freedom of information and there is no mechanism for the public to see what is going on. There can be a secret deal, which is exempt from freedom of information, in the Labour Court that led to the agreement being reached. Then there could be inconsistent agreements being reached by different Ministers or different categories of public sector employment. Only today, the Minister published legislation about mobility of staff in the public service. It is not in anybody's interest that there would be deals done through this legislation that are not publicly available and the Ministers should be accountable to the House on any such deal.
I will cut to the chase. If the Minister or any of his colleagues is doing such deals or they are being done in any of the sectors, health, education, justice or the local authorities, the relevant Minister should lodge the details by way of statutory instrument. It would allow at least for a mechanism by which they may be discussed in the Chambers if the Members choose to do so.
Without that facility different arrangements may be entered into across the eight different sectors and neither the public nor the Parliament will have any knowledge of those arrangements. I ask that they be done by way of regulation rather than agreement solely in the Labour Court or Labour Relations Commission.
Inserting the new section 2B into the parent Act means that an existing power to fix terms and conditions may be exercised by the relevant employer or Minister of the Government so as to result in less favourable remuneration other than core salary, which is unaffected by the power, or in increased hours for the public servants concerned, notwithstanding any of the terms of any enactment, contract or otherwise provided for. This provision will not apply to any group of public servants for whom remuneration is set by primary legislation, such as the Judiciary. I wanted to make that clear, although it is dealt with in the explanatory memorandum.
The new section 2B is a necessary provision to provide alternative means to secure the necessary savings in the public service and pensions bill that we have set out. We require €300 million this year and €1 billion by 2015, as we have said. The overall ambition of the Government is to secure these savings by way of agreement, and that is why we spent five months in negotiations with all the public sector unions. The proposed Haddington Road agreement is the fruit of that labour, negotiated freely between public service employers and public servants through the Labour Relations Commission. Section 7 reflects that an increment freeze can be avoided through a collective agreement between public service employers and employees. It is through the collective agreement provided under this process that the Haddington Road agreement can be implemented between parties.
Section 2B is a limited contingency measure confined to confirming the existing powers to make changes to working time and remuneration other than basic pay, which is not being amended. In practice, it will be exercised by a line Minister such as the Minister for Health or the Minister for Education and Skills and authorised by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.
Amendment No. 29 is inconsistent with the terms of the section and it cannot be accepted as it refers to a pay reduction. It is also unnecessary, as implicit in the powers available under section 2B is the option to exercise the power for different employees or groups of employees differently. I do not believe the existing provisions and powers relating to terms and conditions as modified and provided for in this section would benefit from being exercised by regulation rather than required under existing legislation. For the information of the Deputy, the process will of course be in public and there is no question of a secret agreement being made. If terms and conditions are to be changed, the workers directly involved would know and there is no reason for such a secret to be held. There is no difficulty with that element of the Deputy's concern.
Amendment No. 61 seeks to amend section 8, which provides a power for the Minister to exempt individual public servants or groups from the increment freeze on limited or exceptional grounds. The amendment seeks that this power should be exercised by regulation rather than direction but given the limited power and the narrow legislative parameters in which it will be exercised as set out in the legislation, I am not persuaded that regulation rather than direction, with the attendant policies and principles as set out in the Bill, is required or appropriate.
I would be happy if the collective agreements reached under the auspices of the Labour Relations Commission could be made public.
Yes, of course they will.
The Minister has just indicated that the workers and unions involved in such agreements would know but that is a current arrangement. The Minister knows that as part of the failed Croke Park II agreement, at least ten letters were issued by the Minister's Department and line management as letters of comfort to individual trade unions. Those were never made public and although I asked the Minister to publish them, he told me it was not the normal practice. When I tried to get them under the Freedom of Information Act, I was told that industrial relations processes are exempt from its auspices.
The IMPACT union has in the past few days been showing members letters so it must have received a letter of comfort from somebody authorised by the Minister. It would have dealt with the pensions of people who retire before the restoration of increments and there was an indication that it would be a matter for future Governments. That is what has been stated, based on the letter issued to people by the union. The Minister met representatives of the association of retired public servants yesterday and indicated that he sees the matter slightly differently, with a view based on resources.
It seems there are letters out there as part of the Haddington Road draft agreement and neither the Oireachtas nor the public can access them. They are letters issued in private and the Minister has confirmed that they will not be circulated. I have asked parliamentary questions on making these available but the Minister has kept stonewalling by saying it is a long-standing process and they are only letters of clarification. I want an assurance that agreements will be made public so that everybody can examine them. It is not enough for the employees and the line Minister to know what is contained in them. Will the Minister agree to remove the anomaly from the Freedom of Information Act when we come to it during the year? Will the details of those agreements be made public?
Section 2B really cuts to the chase in what the Government is seeking to achieve with the legislation. On the one hand it reconfirms the strategy of dividing and conquering public sector workers, although the Minister is aware that a trade union is seeking legal advice on the constitutionality of treating different workers in a different manner on the basis of trade union membership or otherwise. The Minister referred to these as "contingency" measures in his Second Stage speech but if he already has the power to arbitrarily cut pay and increase hours, why would he feel it necessary to set that out in legislation?
How can the Minister claim that this legislation respects the principles and practice of free, collective bargaining when he has presented us with the legislative instrument that gives him and his fellow Ministers the power to ride roughshod over that process? It is not appropriate for the Minister to have powers to arbitrarily cut wages or increase hours and it is laughable for him to seek powers through this legislation while claiming that he respects the collective bargaining tradition of this State. I would have thought the Minister, Deputy Howlin, would have had some commitment to that as a member of the Labour Party.
The Minister indicated that this round of cuts will be the "last ask" of public servants but I wonder about that. This legislation gives the Minister the capacity not just now but on a future occasion to cut and sideline, if he so wishes, the collective bargaining process, allowing him to intervene unilaterally and directly. That is simply wrong and it is alarming, given the fact that the Minister's track record is to go after low and middle income workers, freeze and pause increments and increase working hours.
That is wrong.
The Deputy is wrong and she knows it.
The Minister pretends that he is somehow protecting that set of workers but he is doing absolutely nothing of the sort. The provision in this legislation gives the Minister and his colleagues in the Government the scope to do more of the same.
I do not understand why my amendment on section 2B was ruled out of order because it would not impose a charge on the Exchequer and it was not declaratory.
The Deputy may speak to it now.
It seems there is a third string to the exclusion bow but we will deal with it later. Section 2B is the draconian heart of the Bill.
I thought the last section was that.
No, the last section demonstrated the injustice of imposing the burden of cuts and adjustments on people earning less than €100,000. This section is the draconian heart of the Bill because it is essentially telling public sector workers that the Government will negotiate with them as long as there is agreement. If the workers dare to disagree, the Government will inflict whatever it likes on them.
We are giving the power to the Minister to do this, making a mockery of negotiation with trade union members, undermining the basis of collective bargaining and moving in a very dangerous direction of dictatorial imposition of cuts in pay and conditions on working people. It is very shameful that it is a Labour Party Minister who is doing this on the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Lock-out. It truly is. The Minister may not wish to believe this, but earlier I spoke to a trade unionist who described this as a legislative lock-out. I cannot mention his name because he did not give me permission to do so, but he was a card-carrying member of the Labour Party. This is how he described the Bill and he is absolutely right because this is what the Minister is doing. He is fundamentally undermining the basis of negotiation between employers and employees and fundamentally undermining collective bargaining. It is a serious attack on trade unionism and it is depressing in the extreme that the Labour Party would choose to do this. The Minister and the Labour Party should be ashamed of themselves.
The Deputy said that the last time.
This is a real attack. This is anti-trade union legislation. It is not only anti-low and middle income worker legislation or a specific austerity measure. It is about giving draconian powers to the Government and future Governments to attack by fiat the conditions of trade unionists over their heads and making a mockery of the basic principles of trade unionism.
This will be my only chance to speak and I will speak to section 2B. We can all throw blame back and forth with regard to messing in the process, but the Minister has been around long enough to know exactly what is going on with regard to stifling debate on this with the guillotine and the lack of a technical appendix. The Minister is a student of history and political ideology. He mentioned fascism several times earlier in the Chamber. I am not saying we are anywhere near this, but this type of stifling leads this way and the Minister, as a student of these subjects, knows this. He knows exactly what is going on.
I do not have a problem with the target of €300 million. I appreciate the budget must be balanced. It is not necessary under the troika because other savings have already achieved it. We are coming well within the €300 million but it probably should come out nonetheless. However, this section, and the amendments I tabled which were ruled out of order, go to the heart of my problem with the legislation, which is that it targets public sector pay without targeting waste. There is huge waste. I spoke at the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors conference and put it to them their wages would have to fall if and when waste could be taken out first and if a plan could be put in place for people who this legislation will push into financial distress. We know some people will be pushed into mortgage arrears and poverty because of this, but we have no technical appendix or poverty impact assessments so we do not know the numbers. This legislation will impact hugely on people because inevitably it will apply to some workers in Ireland who will not be covered by the Haddington Road agreement. My problem is that it goes after wages when there is a lot of waste to be taken. Ultimately public sector wages must come in line with private sector wages; if we are to have a fair and equitable society workers should be paid the same amount. I take no relish in the fact-----
The Deputy should make up his mind.
There is nothing about which I have to make up my mind. The Minister should listen to what I am saying. What I am saying is-----
Do not cut but equalise.
No. The Minister can be disingenuous and wilfully misunderstand if he likes, but the message is quite simple and public servants understand it. If ultimately public sector wages must fall it should only be in the context of protections for those who get pushed into poverty and arrears. It is unreasonable in my opinion to ask people to take cuts to their pay when there is so much waste which could be gone after first.
The Minister keeps mentioning that 87% of the public sector earns less than €65,000 and will not be hit. Many of them will be hit. The Garda Representative Association has calculated that a garda on €35,000 will take a hit of several thousand euro because of the changes to premium payments.
That is not in the agreement anymore.
It is in the legislation.
It is not in the Haddington Road agreement.
It is in the legislation.
I will call the Minister to reply.
I will finish on this point and I appreciate the indulgence of the Ceann Comhairle. Some people are-----
It is not true. Read the Bill.
I have read the Bill in great detail.
Will the Minister explain why pensioners will be hit at €32,500? I understand the pension is half of the final wage but if we are considering a reasonable wage or income at which people should take a hit there are two completely separate rules, one for people working and earning €65,000 and one for people who have worked and are pensioners for whom the threshold is €32,500. This is utterly flawed in not tackling waste before having to go near wages.
As has been stated, this section is one about which trade unionists are most concerned. The general secretary of the Irish Federation of University Teachers, IFUT, stated this is the first time a lecturer represented by IFUT and a lecturer represented by SIPTU could be on two different terms. There is huge concern about this.
The other issue of huge concern is with regard to the right to free collective bargaining which is supposed to be at the heart of the Labour Party and part of the programme for Government. One cannot have free collective bargaining when one has a gun to one's head; it does not happen this way. William Martin Murphy and the forerunners to IBEC put a gun to workers' heads to sign something. This is exactly what is happening. If one does not sign this, the legislation will be in place and it will be done anyway. It is shameful for any member of the Labour Party to stand over this, particularly when card-carrying members say this.
Serious incidents have occurred in our area where people have been threatened that if they do not hand over money to certain people their houses will be burned down. The Minister is doing the same thing and it is absolutely out of order. There will be resistance to it. Giving Ministers powers which are not checked in the Dáil is a very bad road to take. This is a serious concern for the trade union movement.
I will try to go through the various points made. Deputy Fleming spoke about this not being about a collective agreement and this point was made by a number of other people. Unlike Deputy Fleming's party I set out to fully inform the trade union movement and representatives of workers in the public sector of the exact financial parameters in which the State was operating to see whether they would co-operate in an agreement which would give us the savings we required. We spent five months doing this, unlike Deputy Fleming's party which unilaterally decided to cut wages twice without let or hindrance or discussion with anybody. This side of the House respects collective bargaining. We respect the principles of trade unionism. I ask Deputy Collins and others to respect trade unions and respect the people who spent five months at the table negotiating and the rights of these unions to make recommendations. Some socialists in the House are so pure that anybody who does not agree with them is to be disregarded.
Trade union activists-----
The fact they are democratically elected trade union leaders means nothing to the people on the other side of the House.
Who is democratically elected in the trade union movement? No trade union member is democratically elected.
Allow the Minister to reply. Everybody had a chance to make a point.
The problem with some of the Deputies opposite is that they are so pure that their voices are the only ones to be heard in the Parliament and any voice which disagrees with them is to be shouted down.
The Minister was heckling me a moment ago.
Let me clear about this. I respect the right of trade unions to come to their own independent decisions now, but I have set out fairly what the Government has to do. It is in the full light of all those facts that individual trade unionists - who have a stake not only as public servants but also as people dependent on public services, and as taxpayers and citizens - will come to their own conclusions. Let us respect that and not call them names or browbeat them, as some Deputies opposite have done.
We are not calling them names.
Let me deal with the other points made by Deputy Fleming. This section is a contingency in the event of non-agreement. That is what it is about. It is also a useful, positive thing to have because powers exist to do these things, as I have said. I want to put it beyond doubt, however, because there will be circumstances where the rights and conditions of workers have to be reaffirmed by Ministers, where workers move within the public service as happens now, and terms and conditions might not be legally certain. This provision can be exercised in that regard to ensure that workers have their entitlements and rights preserved as they move across the public service in redeployment. That is something I was alerted to and it is a useful provision to have in this legislation.
So that is why it is there.
No, it is not. I have said clearly that it is a contingency in the event of non-agreement. I have made no bones about this. Where people, by their own democratic rights, determine that they do not want to be part of the Haddington Road agreement, we have to make savings. We are not going to exempt people from making a contribution when others have signed up to do it.
Is that not a recipe for duress?
That would not be fair, reasonable or logical. Deputy Fleming mentioned the letters issue. There is a difference between the clarifications that were sought by some unions, and that is the content of the letters that we issued. There were fewer than happened in previous agreements and it has never been the practice in agreements negotiated by Deputy Fleming's own government, going back to the beginning of social partnership, for those letters to be published. I would have an open mind on it but I am told that it would be a new precedent. I will reflect further on that if the Deputy is really animated about it, and we will come back to it later when we have settled this particular set of matters.
Deputy McDonald talked about the constitutionality of these provisions and referenced one particular trade union. Every trade union, no less than any citizen, has the right to test the constitutionality of any provision enacted by these Houses. Of course they are entitled to do that, but I depend on the advice of the Attorney General in bringing legislative matters before this House. The Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest, or FEMPI, legislation has probably been challenged more in the courts than any set of legislative measures and it has proven to be remarkably resilient and robust. It is the right of any individual to challenge it, however.
Although there are a number of bilateral agreements with individual sectoral unions, I still hope that there will be a critical mass to have an overarching agreement with the public sector unions and with congress. Therefore, this would ultimately be a congress agreement and there will be no exemptions from it and no contingencies required. That would still be my hope but it is a matter for the democratic process. That is what I would prefer to arrive at and it would be better for the public service generally than to have bilateral agreements with individual sectors or unions.
Deputy McDonald also referred to free collective bargaining, and I have already answered that question. She also mentioned the "last ask" issue and she dealt with that. In an earlier contribution, Deputy Fleming spoke about how far we had travelled on the road to recovery. He is so impressed by how far we have travelled that he feels I need to convince him again that we actually have a financial emergency. I think he half believes that we have escaped from it now, which is an interesting view. We have travelled a long way from the disaster that this Government inherited, but we are not out of the woods yet. We still a level of deficit that I instanced earlier and we are still borrowing at the rate of €1 billion per month.
Once this particular set of measures is put in place, it is my absolute, firm intention that we will not be looking at public sector pay again for the duration of this Parliament and Government, and for the duration of this agreement. I hope that the next negotiations that we embark upon with the public sector unions will be about undoing some of the difficult measures that have been enacted in FEMPI legislation and other measures. We will therefore be talking about improvements in terms and conditions. That is what I would like. I think that is a reasonable expectation now because we have made so many difficult decisions.
In reply to Deputy McDonald, I want to refer to the notion of low income. It is unreasonable to categorise people in excess of €65,000 per annum as being on low income.
I was talking about clerical officers on €32,000 per annum.
Some of the Deputies opposite want the threshold of pay cuts to begin at €100,000 but nobody in the country thinks that people on €95,000 or €98,000 should be exempt from making a contribution.
Nobody is saying that clerical officers on €32,000 should take a hit.
It was tabled by the Deputies opposite; they want to exempt Members of the House. How would it go down with the public if Deputy Joan Collins was to exempt herself from a pay cut? It would look ridiculous.
(Interruptions).
We are not having a shouting match here. Deputies will have a chance to respond to the Minister if they wait.
I think this is the third lecture we have received from Deputy Boyd Barrett in the course of this debate alone. I am used to it, both in committee and in the House.
I have received a lot more from the Minister.
I will answer the questions as they were put. There is a view among some Deputies opposite that if one says something often enough, no matter how absurd it is, it is the truth. That is the view.
That is the Minister's view.
Deputy Boyd Barrett goes on again about low-income public servants, and he wants to exempt people on €100,000.
That is a side issue.
So anything below €100,000 is low income in Deputy Boyd Barrett-land.
That is not what I said.
That is the new socialist revolution.
He is from Dún Laoghaire.
A person is on a low income if he or she earns less than €100,000. It is ludicrous.
That is not what I said.
I think a contribution from people earning over €65,000 is a reasonable ask. This is a reasonable set of measures. Deputy Donnelly talked about waste but in all honesty the whole notion that we will not have to cut anybody's wages is a cop-out. He says he agrees with the ask and reducing the wage bill, but we should start by tackling waste. There is always something nebulous over there.
It is not nebulous.
They do not want to do anything hard because there is waste to be found.
There is loads of waste. The fact that the Minister does not know that says a lot.
Excuse me. This is not a shouting match.
If Deputy Donnelly or any other Deputies want to bring forward suggestions about identifying waste, they will have a ready ear in my Department. I have set up a reform and delivery office. We have set out a radical waste elimination process to amalgamate, eliminate waste and have shared services. We are driving that agenda. I would be happy to give the Deputy chapter and verse on it. The notion that we cannot do anything else until we eliminate waste is a nice convenient little cop-out.
The other notion of pushing people into poverty because we take a reasonable contribution from people earning over €65,000 is ludicrous.
It is a farce. How insulting.
Would Deputy Donnelly please restrain himself?
It is difficult to have to listen to this bombast again.
I am asking you to try, anyway. I suggest that you should leave the Chamber if you find it too difficult.
It is a terrible strain, I know. Deputy Donnelly is probably preparing his Sunday Independent article and it is very difficult for him to listen to another discordant voice from his perch of authority.
The only person here who seems incapable of listening to discordant voices is on his feet.
That is all right. I would rather have had more time to debate these issues and go through every section, particularly the issues concerning pensions. I have not had an opportunity to do so, but over time we will have an opportunity to do all that.
I am required to put the following question in accordance with an Order of the Dáil of this day: "That each of the sections undisposed of is hereby agreed to in committee and the Title is hereby agreed to in committee, the Bill is accordingly reported to the House without amendment, Report Stage is hereby completed and the Bill is hereby passed."
Question put.
The Dáil divided by electronic means.
There must be another opportunity given to Government parties to vote in a different way, given the obnoxious nature of this Bill. There needs to be a vote other than by electronic means.
Question again put:
The Dáil divided: Tá, 81; Níl, 50.
Tá
- Bannon, James.
- Barry, Tom.
- Burton, Joan.
- Butler, Ray.
- Buttimer, Jerry.
- Byrne, Eric.
- Cannon, Ciarán.
- Carey, Joe.
- Coffey, Paudie.
- Conlan, Seán.
- Connaughton, Paul J.
- Conway, Ciara.
- Coonan, Noel.
- Corcoran Kennedy, Marcella.
- Creed, Michael.
- Daly, Jim.
- Deasy, John.
- Deenihan, Jimmy.
- Deering, Pat.
- Doherty, Regina.
- Donohoe, Paschal.
- Dowds, Robert.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- English, Damien.
- Farrell, Alan.
- Feighan, Frank.
- Ferris, Anne.
- Fitzgerald, Frances.
- Fitzpatrick, Peter.
- Flanagan, Charles.
- Flanagan, Terence.
- Griffin, Brendan.
- Hannigan, Dominic.
- Harrington, Noel.
- Harris, Simon.
- Hayes, Tom.
- Howlin, Brendan.
- Humphreys, Heather.
- Humphreys, Kevin.
- Keating, Derek.
- Kehoe, Paul.
- Kelly, Alan.
- Kenny, Seán.
- Kyne, Seán.
- Lawlor, Anthony.
- Lynch, Kathleen.
- Lyons, John.
- Maloney, Eamonn.
- Mathews, Peter.
- McCarthy, Michael.
- McEntee, Helen.
- McGinley, Dinny.
- McHugh, Joe.
- McLoughlin, Tony.
- McNamara, Michael.
- Mitchell O'Connor, Mary.
- Mitchell, Olivia.
- Mulherin, Michelle.
- Murphy, Dara.
- Murphy, Eoghan.
- Nash, Gerald.
- Neville, Dan.
- Nolan, Derek.
- Noonan, Michael.
- O'Donnell, Kieran.
- O'Donovan, Patrick.
- O'Mahony, John.
- O'Sullivan, Jan.
- Rabbitte, Pat.
- Reilly, James.
- Ryan, Brendan.
- Shatter, Alan.
- Spring, Arthur.
- Stagg, Emmet.
- Stanton, David.
- Timmins, Billy.
- Tuffy, Joanna.
- Varadkar, Leo.
- Wall, Jack.
- Walsh, Brian.
- White, Alex.
Níl
- Adams, Gerry.
- Boyd Barrett, Richard.
- Broughan, Thomas P.
- Calleary, Dara.
- Collins, Joan.
- Collins, Niall.
- Colreavy, Michael.
- Cowen, Barry.
- Daly, Clare.
- Doherty, Pearse.
- Donnelly, Stephen S.
- Dooley, Timmy.
- Ellis, Dessie.
- Ferris, Martin.
- Flanagan, Luke 'Ming'.
- Fleming, Sean.
- Grealish, Noel.
- Halligan, John.
- Healy, Seamus.
- Healy-Rae, Michael.
- Higgins, Joe.
- Keaveney, Colm.
- Kelleher, Billy.
- Kitt, Michael P.
- Lowry, Michael.
- Mac Lochlainn, Pádraig.
- Martin, Micheál.
- McConalogue, Charlie.
- McDonald, Mary Lou.
- McGrath, Finian.
- McGrath, Mattie.
- McGrath, Michael.
- McLellan, Sandra.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- Naughten, Denis.
- Nulty, Patrick.
- Ó Caoláin, Caoimhghín.
- Ó Fearghaíl, Seán.
- Ó Snodaigh, Aengus.
- O'Brien, Jonathan.
- O'Dea, Willie.
- O'Sullivan, Maureen.
- Pringle, Thomas.
- Ross, Shane.
- Shortall, Róisín.
- Smith, Brendan.
- Stanley, Brian.
- Tóibín, Peadar.
- Troy, Robert.
- Wallace, Mick.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Paul Kehoe and Emmet Stagg; Níl, Deputies Seán Ó Fearghaíl and Aengus Ó Snodaigh..
Question declared carried.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 30 May 2013.