I move:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £27,000 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of December, 1975, for the salaries and expenses of the Houses of the Oireachtas, including certain grants-in-aid.
I should like to use the occasion to make some remarks on one of the aspects of this Supplementary Estimate. It is regrettable that, as has happened so often in the past, recent weeks have been charged with much emotive and unfair comment about the payment to Members of the Oireachtas in respect of their duties as public representatives of allowances which are specifically provided for in the Constitution of the State.
In order to put this matter in proper perspective and in an effort to avoid the unseemly public debate which has so often surrounded this issue, I wish to remind all concerned that in 1969 the Government of the day asked the Independent Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector to recommend appropriate levels of remuneration for members of the Government and other office holders and allowances for Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas. This was done to remove any grounds for the accusation that Members fixed their own levels of remuneration. That uninfluenced review body reported in 1972 but that was still not the end of the outside independent examination of the matter. The recommendations of the review body were sent for further examination by a special committee of the non-partisan Employer-Labour Conference and ultimately on 22nd December, 1972, the Employer-Labour Conference made their recommendations. In June, 1973, on behalf of this Government, I announced publicly that the Government had decided in principle that increases in the levels of remuneration of parliamentarians, the judiciary and civil servants should be kept in step with the rounds of the national wage agreements. Our objective in so doing was to maintain what the reference to the review body in 1969 set out to achieve, an independent means of determining appropriate allowances for Members of the Oireachtas and others whose income levels for some reason or another tend to provoke unpleasant comment from some quarters.
The increased allowances proposed in the new order reflect the independent assessment which has been made of what allowances are now appropriate for Members of the Oireachtas. This simply involves the application to them of the terms of the national agreement negotiated between the trade union movement on the one hand and employers on the other and completely refutes the fanciful allegation that Members of the Oireachtas freely determine their own rates of remuneration.
The increased allowances which are provided for in this Supplementary Estimate and the increased salaries which will be payable to judges by virtue of a draft order which the Government have tabled in the Dáil provides no more than what was received by people with equivalent incomes to whom the national wage agreement was applicable. It should be appreciated that the money is being paid in arrear as most of it was payable as far back as 1st June and 1st September last. There will be no increases in 1976 for either judges or Members of the Oireachtas and members of the Government are foregoing a great deal more.
As I have already indicated, notwithstanding their normal entitlement under the 1975 national agreement to have their salaries increased with effect from 1st June, 1st September and 1st December last and indeed to further increases on 1st March next, the Government have voluntarily and very deliberately declined those increases. Similarly the increases for remuneration will not be paid to Parliamentary Secretaries, the Attorney General, or Chairmen or Deputy Chairmen of either Houses of the Oireachtas. The value of the increases from 1st June, 1975, to 31st December, 1976, thus declined by the Taoiseach amount to £2,364, and to £1,577 in the case of Ministers.
Having made an appeal for a national pay pause in 1976, a pay pause which is crucial to the achievement of economic recovery, the Government consider that it would be most inappropriate to pay any new increases to members of the Government or other office holders or to judges throughout 1976 and similarly they have decided that no further increases in allowances will be payable to Members of the Oireachtas in 1976. This pay pause is greater than that which the Government have been seeking from the community as a whole because the effect of this decision will be that Members of the Oireachtas, judges and the other people affected will not receive the final instalments of the current national agreement which in the absence of this decision would be payable.
Finally, I want to remind everybody that the remuneration of judges, Ministers and other office holders and TDs and Senators is subject to income tax. As some of the people concerned will be liable for tax at a rate of 77 pence in the £, the real value of their net increases is considerably less than the gross. This factor, together with the fact that as from April next all the remuneration I have referred to will come within the PAYE system, will hopefully still at least save critical comment.
