Jonathan O'Brien
Question:57. Deputy Jonathan O'Brien asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the status of pay negotiations; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49531/18]
View answerTuesday, 27 November 2018
Questions (57)
Oral answers (5 contributions)
The status of pay negotiations is that we are in the first year of a three-year collective agreement to progressively dismantle emergency legislation, giving individual public servants benefits of between 7.4% and 6.2%, or up to 10% for new entrants hired after 2012.
Unwinding the emergency legislation has been a priority for the Government and we have ring-fenced substantial resources to deliver this. Over the period from 2018 to 2020, some €887 million has been allocated to fulfil our commitments and honour the terms of the agreement. A further €306 million in carryover costs and additional funding will be required to completely unwind the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, pay reductions bringing the total level of resources committed to €1.1 billion.
In addition the public service stability agreement required two further issues to be addressed: new entrants and, where they occur, recruitment and retention difficulties. Regarding new entrants, following my report to the Oireachtas last March, we engaged with the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and negotiated a deal which will see 35,750 new entrants, 58% of the total, benefitting in year one, rising to 78% in year two. All of the current stock of new entrants will have fully benefitted by 2024. This is a fair agreement which manages the €200 million cost associated with the remaining salary scale issues in a responsible and affordable manner. In 2019 the cost of this measure is €27 million. Importantly, by intervening further up the pay scale, at points 4 and 8, this initiative will increase the ongoing attractiveness of public service employment, helping to retain staff.
The Deputy will be aware of the Public Service Pay Commission and its various reports in this area.
The Minister is aware of the threat of industrial action in a number of sectors, particularly the health sector. I note his press release this weekend outlining the consequences of that. While I do not agree with it and find it unhelpful, there is a very small window of opportunity to try to address the ballots currently taking place. I know the Minister will probably disagree with that and will claim he cannot deviate from the pay deal that is in place for budgetary reasons.
However, the Minister recently said that addressing pay for nurses and consultants could compromise the budgetary policy. My argument back to him is that his failure to address these issues is compromising our health service and something has to give. Will the Minister engage with the unions as they have asked for direct discussions under the mechanisms available to him?
On recruitment, between October 2013 and October 2018, the number of nurses and midwives has increased by 10%, or 3,300 full-time equivalents. Since 2011 alone, 10,000 new entrants have joined as nurses and midwives. Significant recruitment has taken place in both those areas in recent years. At this point, having negotiated an agreement in good faith with all our public and civil servants, it is not tenable for the Government to make additional money available to one sector but not to another. The reality is that were such a development to happen, it would trigger a set of competing claims that would make it very difficult for any government to manage its public pay bill.
I reiterate my appreciation of the work our nurses and midwives do, but I emphasise that we have a wage agreement and recommendations from the Public Service Pay Commission that I am willing to implement next year.
I acknowledge the recruitment figures the Minister mentioned. However, 2,000 fewer nurses work in the system than ten years ago. While we have increased the number, we are still behind where we were in 2008 and we have a long way to go.
The INMO general secretary has called on the Minister to engage in direct discussions with INMO members on this. I do not believe and I do not think the Minister believes that nurses want to take industrial action. They feel they are being forced down this avenue and they are trying to reach a compromise solution with the Minister. They are asking for direct discussions within the current public sector pay agreement. There is no harm in accepting that offer of negotiation and at least sitting down to see if a solution can be found. If we do not find it, we are likely to see nurses on strike, possibly as soon as January.
We have a mode and a format for engagement with the nursing unions, which is the oversight committee of the public service stability agreement. Officials from my Department are key participants within the committee. Through that we have the opportunity to engage directly, for example, with the nursing unions, on any issue that pertains to the public service stability agreement.
I again emphasise the respect I have for the work our nurses and midwives do in our hospitals throughout the country. Alongside that respect for them, I emphasise the economic consequences that would flow from the issues they are raising. A 12% pay increase alone would cost the health services €300 million. If the health service were to meet the demand for an additional two hours of continuous professional development per individual per week, it would remove approximately 3.5 million nursing hours from our public health service.
The cost of that alone would be €127 million. Those are the costs for the health service alone. From all the experience we have had of collective agreements over many years, the reality is that meeting those concessions would trigger equivalent demands across the entire public service and Civil Service, which would cause difficulty in terms of our ability to run public pay in an affordable way and be able to hire more nurses and doctors in the future.