There are one or two matters arising out of the Parliamentary Secretary's speech on this question of retrospection. He mentioned that the Employer/Labour Conference did not recommend that there ought to be retrospection. That is so but they told the Government that in their view retrospection would be acceptable under the national pay agreement and the 12th round. It is open to the Government to introduce retrospection. They went further than that. They laid out certain increases which in their view could take place on certain dates under these awards and which would be in accordance with their general provisions. As I mentioned in my speech, they laid out, for example, that a Deputy could get a figure like £3,023 on 1st January, 1972, and Senators accordingly. There were various steps laid down. They certainly did not tell the Government that this is what they ought to do but they told the Government that if they did this it would be fully in accordance with the national pay agreement and the 12th round. That is the point I wish to make on the question of retrospection. It is in accordance with these wage rounds and, what is more to the point, it is in accordance with the kind of treatment that every other section of the working population got under various awards. We alone are left without any element of retrospection. The purely technical matter as to whether or not there was a recommendation is not important. It could have been done and it should have been done in accordance with the views of the Employer/Labour Conference.
In regard to the comparison with the salaries of civil servants, the Parliamentary Secretary said that, after all, the higher civil servants had their salaries fixed by the Devlin committee, the same people who fixed our salaries, that there was no real grievance since the Devlin committee dealt with both matters. I believe I am right in saying that the group of civil servants whom I quoted, the higher executive officers, are a very large group and, so far as I know, they had nothing whatever to do with Devlin. My understanding is, and I may be wrong, that for many years their salaries have been governed by arbitration. It was the civil servants in higher positions than higher executive officers, for example, those in the administrative grades, who were covered by Devlin. I am not particularly interested in whether Devlin did this or Devlin did that. The basic factor that should be of importance is the comparison with the cost of living rise since 1st August, 1968. On that basis we have been given 35 per cent in the case of Senators and 36 per cent in the case of Deputies to meet a cost of living rise of very nearly 50 per cent. The Cathaoirleach has been given the magnificent rise of around 12 per cent to deal with the same rise in living costs.
Devlin reported in early July, 1972. Nearly 13 months have elapsed since then. In that time there has been a cost of living rise of about 12 per cent. We are all that much worse off than last year. Yet no allowance has been made for this in the salaries now being awarded. It is not a question of technicalities as to who reported, who did this, who did that, who made what recommendation. Since five years ago yesterday all of us in this and the other House, Government Ministers, officers of the House, the Cathaoirleach, the Leas-Chathaoirleach, the Ceann Comhairle, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle have been downgraded. They are that much less well off than they were five years ago yesterday.
For example, a Deputy if he was just to be left in the same situation in relation to the cost of living as he was five years ago should have had another £300 given in this award. A Senator should have had a couple of hundred pounds more. The point is that we have all been downgraded not merely in relation to the cost of living but also in relation to the much higher increases that almost every other section of the population has had, going in most cases far beyond the technical increase in the cost of living.