Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 1 March 2022
1. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Taoiseach the number of staff currently employed by his Department; the current annual salary of the highest-paid person employed by his Department; and the various pay scales for persons working in his Department. [7799/22]
View answerThe role of my Department is to support me as Taoiseach, and the Government, to ensure a sustainable economy and a successful society, pursue Ireland's interests abroad, implement the Government's programme and build a better future for Ireland and all of her citizens. In order to ensure my Department remains agile in responding to emerging priorities, its staffing resources are kept under ongoing review. At present, there are 223.8 whole-time equivalent staff employed across the Department. The majority are assigned to the following main divisions of the Department: international, European Union and Northern Ireland division, including the shared island unit; economic division; social policy and public services reform division; protocol and civic policy division; Government secretariat; and corporate affairs division. The remainder are assigned to private offices, constituency offices, the Government information service and internal audit.
The highest-paid civil servant in my Department serves as both Secretary to the Government and as Secretary General at the Department of the Taoiseach. He is paid at the Secretary General 1 level and his current salary is €215,998. Civil Service salary scales apply to staff employed in my Department as set out in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform's most recent pay circular published on www.gov.ie. The circular sets out all the pay scales for Civil Service staff, ranging from cleaner to Secretary General level.
This week alone, my office has received phone calls from single mothers looking for baby food, farmers dealing with spiralling and crippling costs due to the increase of fertiliser, members of the Defence Forces who are sleeping in cars, homeowners in Donegal looking for affordable caravans to rent because their houses are crumbling around them and students who are on a diet of Pot Noodle because they cannot afford much else. The CEO of the HSE is paid more than the Taoiseach, five times more than the President of India, twice the amount the President of France; more than the Prime Ministers of Britain and Canada, more than the President of the USA and more than the Chancellor of Germany. Would the Taoiseach agree that the wages of top civil servants should be proportional to their performance and productivity?
If he agrees with this, surely there needs to be some reduction in the wages of these civil servants when one looks at what is happening within much of the public service at present. There is the Kerry child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, scandal, the national children’s hospital overspend, the failure of the CervicalCheck tribunal etc. Why are we paying such high wages to certain civil servants when they are in charge of so many scandals? The Taoiseach mentioned a wage of €215,998 per annum and that is a lottery win for most people on the average wage in this country. There is a chasm between the experience of most ordinary citizens in this country and the largesse that is experienced by many within the upper echelons of the Civil Service. I call on the Taoiseach to make sure that chasm is closed, that the multiple of earnings at the top compared to the bottom is reduced and that there is some level of productivity and performance in the salaries. That is the experience of practically everybody else earning an income in this country. Why is it not the case in the Government and the Civil Service?
One of the core activities of the Department of the Taoiseach is to provide leadership of the Civil Service renewal programme through the Civil Service management board in collaboration with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Last month, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform told an Oireachtas committee of his intention to establish an independent review panel to advise on senior public sector appointments and corresponding salaries. The need for this panel is a direct consequences of the opaque method by which the Government appointed the Secretary General to the Department of Health last year and the Government party leaders’ decision to attach an arbitrary 40% pay increase to that position. Can the Taoiseach confirm if this independent review panel has been established and can he tell us what its remit is? Who has been appointed to carry out this work and when is the panel due to conclude its work? Following the Minister’s attendance at last month’s committee meeting, Government leaks to the media indicated that the work of the review panel might result in the final tranche of pay restoration for senior public servants being deferred or cancelled. Will the planned pay restoration in July proceed as agreed or has the Government put this agreement on hold until after the review panel completes its work?
The Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach is on record as saying that no clear process was followed in deciding to give a 38% pay rise to Robert Watt. He stated “While I would rather there was a much more scientific process for all of these things, there is not.” Some €81,000 extra was given to Mr. Watt, more than the vast majority of workers earn in a whole year as a regular wage, not a pay increase, and with no scientific process for it. We hear that further pay increases of 10% to 15% may possibly be given to those earning over €150,000 in July but that they may be postponed. How can the Taoiseach justify such pay increases for highly-paid officials while most ordinary workers are getting below-inflation pay increases? Instead of pay rises for those at the top, should we not have a maximum pay in the public sector and instead have above-inflation pay rises for ordinary workers in both the private and public sectors?
People are shocked at the extent of the pay and pay increases for the Secretary General of the Department of Health and the pay level for the head of the HSE. How can the Government justify that when at the same time it is willing to stand over the fact that ordinary workers in the health service, in education and in local authorities are held down to 1% or 2% pay increases when inflation is running at 5%? Following a briefing at the Department of Finance today, the breaking news is that the Department is estimating that as a result of the situation in Ukraine and the decision to impose sanctions, we are looking at 7% inflation for the coming year. Working people are being hammered with the rising cost of living, which will go up further, yet the Government will keep their pay increases at 1% or 2%. Would workers not be right to put in pay claims to insist they get pay increases at least to the level of the cost of living and inflation increases that are being inflicted on them?
On the points Deputy Tóibín raised, I will make the general point that Ireland has the most progressive taxation system in Europe and the world. The point of that is that those on high wages pay the highest amount of tax in this country-----
Because of low pay.
-----which is how it should be. It is objectively regarded as a progressive taxation system. The Deputy referred to performance and productivity and I am a strong admirer of the Irish public service and have been for a long time. That is notwithstanding weaknesses, flaws and uneven performance at times but if one looks at the evolution of the Irish State over the last 50 or 60 years or even from its foundation, one has to objectively say that the country has made a lot of progress. Some 100 years on from 1922 survival rates in health have dramatically improved and we have gained 25 years in lifespan over that 100 years. In the past 20 years, survival from cardiovascular disease have dramatically improved. Survival from cancer, on foot of oncology, has dramatically improved. National accident strategies have dramatically lowered rates of mortality on our roads and in workplaces-----
Individual productivity-----
-----so there has been a lot of systemic good work done in recent decades by the Irish public service. In more recent times, that has been manifested in our performance during Covid again notwithstanding flaws and mistakes that could have been made. Overall, however, Irish public servants put all hands on deck in responding to a one-in-100-year event.
These are individual salaries.
On mortality, in our hospital system and more critically, in terms of our broader societal response, the Irish public service stands up alongside its peers across Europe and globally. While there is no doubt but that lessons can be learned from that, if one looks at the vaccination programme alone, it was one of the best vaccination programmes administered in the world, which dramatically protected Irish people from losing their lives, becoming severely ill or being hospitalised. That was not achieved on fresh air or without a competent public service behind it.
The Deputy first listed a number of areas in which things could without doubt have been done better but he should equally have shown the full balance sheet, in that some very significant work was undertaken by Irish public servants. We do not affirm that enough in this House. It is important to affirm, as well as to criticise and be negative.
The other key area and this is all happening in real time, is Brexit, which we had just before Covid. If one looks at the situation in the United Kingdom in respect of Brexit, compared to the preparation in the Republic, one would have to say that Revenue, social protection, various Departments and our ports authorities have responded well and efficiently. Maybe they could do better in some respects but, overall, Brexit was a considerable potential issue for us as an economy and a society and we have managed to deal with it-----
The Taoiseach is generalising the successes.
I am not generalising. These are not-----
I am talking about specific salaries.
I am just making the point. The Deputy specifically spoke about performance and productivity-----
At the top.
-----and he specifically spoke about the Irish public service and the issues he had with it. I wanted to give the Deputy the other side of that story.
The vast majority of salaries and so forth are centrally negotiated with trade unions-----
Mr. Robert Watt's salary is not.
-----throughout the public service, whether it is the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants or other unions, through national wage agreements. The most effective way to tackle high salaries is the income tax system, which is progressive in this country. It basically means that when one gets to a certain level, approximately 50% is taxed. That rarely gets said in the debate but it is the reality. That relates both to USC, which is especially harsh or strong on those on very high incomes, and to higher income tax rates. That is the most effective in terms of redistribution of income from higher salary earners and is a more effective way of doing things.
With regard to Civil Service renewal, the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, has indicated he will undertake a comprehensive review of all of the issues around Civil Service recruitment and pay. He proposes the establishment of an external review panel to make recommendations to strengthen the recruitment processes of senior public service posts and the process for determining the terms and conditions of employment. To ensure transparency and objectivity in the process, it is proposed that the panel will consist of three members from different relevant backgrounds with secretarial support to be provided by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. Officials in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform are currently examining the issues and will recommend terms of reference, scope of the review and potential membership of the review panel.
This Oireachtas, in previous iterations, already passed financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, legislation. The process of unwinding the financial emergency legislation commenced under the Lansdowne Road agreement between unions and employers and the State, which covered the period 2016 to 2018, with the remainder of the process largely completed under the Public Service Stability Agreement 2018-2020. The final elements of pay restoration have continued under Building Momentum, a new public service agreement for 2021 to 2022. Salary rebates up to €150,000, which account for 99% of the public service, have been fully restored. Section 20 of the Public Service Pay and Pensions Act 2017 states that the Minister, by order, shall provide for completion of pay restoration to public servants paid an annual basic salary of more than €150,000 by 1 July 2022.
In light of the consideration now being given to an external review to examine the processes and procedures around the recruitment of senior public servants, as well as the process for pay determination at senior levels, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is currently examining potential options around how and when this final element of restoration will be implemented. As restoration is provided for in legislation, this will require careful consultation with the Office of the Attorney General.
