I move:
That Dáil Éireann condemns the Government's mishandling of public service pay.
The issue of public sector pay increases has been handled in a bungling fashion by the Government. There are many reasons why we decided to move this motion on the first day of the Dáil after the recess. Public service pay was one of the major issues during the recess and it is appropriate to discuss the matter in the Dáil rather than in the media. Last Tuesday, for the first time 150,000 public servants took strike action and tomorrow, the public services committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions meet. Tonight's debate gives the Minister an opportunity to outline the present position in regard to the reappointment of the arbitrator and other matters. If the Minister's plans remain unchanged further marches and stoppages will take place over the next few weeks. Last Tuesday's public service strike over the Government's handling of a number of pay related issues involved hardship for many people. Schools were closed, air services were brought to a standstill, Government Departments were unmanned except for a few senior staff, county councils and corporations closed, refuse collection, road works and maintenance services ceased, customs staff stayed away, thus losing revenue for the State, hospitals operated restricted services, court sittings were disrupted, meat factories ceased production, prison officers staged a protest. These and the lack of many other services affecting the old, the infirm and unemployed brought the country to a standstill. It is of paramount importance to discuss why this strike took place and put to the Government a case which would avoid a recurrence of this strike because of the damage caused to the nation as a whole.
The breakdown in negotiations between the Government and the public service trade unions, and the trade union movement in general, in recent months has occurred because of, amongst other things, the Government statement of 14 August which set out to impose a pay freeze in the public service for 1986, to refuse to honour special grade claims/pay findings and the non-appointment of the public service arbitrator. When the Minister, on the day preceding the strike of 15 October, said that he was prepared to negotiate a 25th round general pay agreement covering 1986 and beyond, to negotiate on other pay related matters and appoint an arbitrator in the context of agreement being reached on the first two proposals, provided that the public service committee agreed to enter into discussions about the various methods of public pay determination and to discuss any other matter which might be perceived as causing difficulties for the unions or their members, he acted far too late and after damage had been done to good industrial relations in the Civil Service and the public service generally.
It is vitally important to look at what developments occurred in the negotiations in the months prior to 15 October. On 14 October last in the news analysis page of the Irish Independent the Minister stated that the Government were extremely taken aback that several days before the public service stoppage began, the leaders of the unions involved were not able to respond in any meaningful way to the positive initiatives which could have diverted the strike and that to his astonishment he had discovered that the public services committee delegation did not have the authority to negotiate pay rounds. The Minister knew exactly the position in the public service on that date. The reason they did not respond at that stage was that the public services committee did not seek a centralised 25th round because for most of the public service the 24th round does not end until the end of this year, and only the most preliminary steps had been taken to process the 25th round claim. In the early summer, the public services committee resolved to discuss the 25th round and the committee's likely approach to it at the September meeting. However, the Minister's statement of 14 August meant that the priority for the committee was not the arbitration system and the Labour Court as in 1984, but the removal from the negotiating table of the 12-month pay pause for 1986. Even if they had wanted to have discussions on the centralised 25th round they would have needed the mandate of the individual unions followed by a majority decision of the public services committee. When the Minister made his various statements on 11 October and thereafter he knew that they had neither, yet he tried to make capital out of the fact that he had a mandate from the Government and was prepared to make an offer on the 25th round. It is clear that the unions just wished to get an indication that the 25th round would not include a Government imposed pay freeze.
I am astonished at what has happened because the warning signals were clear as far back as last April when the Civil Service general staff panel wrote to the Minister asking about the position on the arbitrator. There was various correspondence after that in which the Minister seemed to say that they were delaying. However, it was clear from that correspondence what was the position of the central staff general council panel. They separated the two matters of the arbitrator and the negotiations on conciliation and arbitration. In a letter to the Minister I understand that the general staff panel said that they saw no connection between the appointment of the arbitrator and possible discussions on the operation of the present machinery for pay determination and accordingly they requested that the views of the Government regarding the appointment of Mr. Geoghegan, SC, be conveyed to the panel as a matter of some urgency. It is unreasonable of the Minister to say that he was not absolutely clear as to the unions' position until the last minute. Relations with the unions were also clear from a number of statements made on 20 April 1985 at the annual meeting of the Union of Professional and Technical Civil Servants at which their secretary, Mr. Greg Maxwell, said that the Government were trying to dismantle the system of comparability and to abolish independent arbitration and rejected any invitation from the Minister to enter into the "spider's web," as he put it. The chairman of the same union, Mr. Alan Craig, told the same conference that they must be ready to take action at any time to protect their vital interests and the fundamental base where pay determination is threatened. What would happen later in the year was quite clear. On 18 September, almost a month before the strike, the Government reported that they were surprised at the decision of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to back out of the 1 October meeting on the jobs crisis. The congress decided not to talk to the Government because of the Government's demand for the 12-months pay freeze and the non-appointment of the arbitrator. For the Minister to try to give the impression that he was unaware of what might happen on the non-appointment of the arbitrator is silly. The build up of hostilities did not only stem from the 14 August statement, though clearly the Government's indication that they accepted that the basis for determining conditions of pay and employment should be free collective bargaining and that the Government concluded that apart from existing commitments under the national plan there should be no increase in the public service for at least 12 months from the expiry date of the 24th round, indicated a conflict of interests.
The present Minister for the Public Service when appointed was the first Cabinet Minister with full responsibility for the Department of the Public Service, and much play was made of that at the time. He commenced his task in a manner which spoke of effectiveness and efficiency. I leave others to judge whether he has achieved those. Time and time again he decided to adopt terrier-like tactics of confrontation and bringing people to the battle lines rather than consultation and conciliation which would be more appropriate in matters as delicate as industrial relations. I am sure that his colleague, the Minister for Labour, would agree with me on that.
I will give a few examples of the many attacks on the public service. At the 1983 Fine Gael Ard-Fheis the Minister made a hard hitting speech on the public service and stated among other things that he had enough pious rhetoric about reform of the public service and that the great stumbling block to change had been an attitude most often prevalent amongst senior management based on the traditional approach which was, "If it works, why change it?". That is an unfair way to attack senior civil servants.
On 31 August 1983 the Minister was compared to Adolf Hitler and Margaret Thatcher by the leader of the Civil and Public Service Staff Association over a dispute on computerisation involving clerical assistants. At one stage in those negotiations the Minister decided to take away the right of the staff to stop the automatic deduction of union dues and stated at the time, "If the other side will not abide by the rules and refuse to accept an independent referee, they cannot expect us to play ball". This is an extraordinary remark by a Minister who within a year was to attempt to take away the referee altogether. He told the Association of Higher Civil Servants at their annual conference in early May this year that the Civil Service does not exist for the benefit of civil servants. Is it necessary to tell any civil servant that? At the same conference, although a motion had been withdrawn by the relevant branch and by the executive, he spoke of motions on anarchy.
At the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis on 6 October 1984 the Minister, speaking on pay, stated as Government policy that there would be no further increases for public servants in 1984 and a nominal increase in 1985. He said that any new demands for special increases during the life of the plan could not be countenanced and, having regard to the very special advantages public servants enjoy at present in the way of security of employment, they should refrain from taking any action which might be seen to threaten the success of the Government's plan for the restoration of public finances. He stated that by and large civil servants have recession-proof jobs but they cannot expect at the same time to have inflation-proof pay, that any such demands could not be countenanced by any member of the Government and that if the Government's plan did not succeed public servants would, more directly than any other group, have to suffer the direct consequences. He told them also that it was not an exaggeration to say that their jobs were at risk. If those were not warmongering statements and attacks on the public service then I do not know what they were. The Minister made several other statements of a similar nature and eventually, in face of the threat of a strike in October 1984, he gave in. The arbitrator was appointed, and the Minister continued to make statements that nothing outside the plan could be paid.
On the eve of the 1985 budget, having set aside £20 million for public service pay, the Government said that they would pay the arbitrator's award, that they accepted it and that £88 million would have to be found overnight. As I pointed out at the opening of the debate on the budget, this gave rise to a very strange coincidence. I remind the House and those outside it of that £88 million because if I have heard the Minister once I have heard him a hundred times this summer saying that the only way an increase in public service pay can be got is through taxation or foreign borrowing. That £88 million was obtained by revenue bouyancy. An estimated £58 million was just stuck into the budget and the extra £30 million was estimated savings on staff costs. That is how the books were balanced. After all the talk about how sacrosanct the figures in the national plan for public service pay were, £88 million could be got overnight and it is difficult to accept that the only way it could be got was by additional taxation or borrowing. Events this year are following the same pattern, except that because of Government mismanagement and indecision a more serious dimension has now been introduced. The Government and the Minister for the Public Service, in particular, succeeded in arousing the anger and hostility of virtually every man and woman employed in the public service. Whether in the Civil Service, the local authorities, schools, hospitals or elsewhere, that anger and hostility more than anything else brought the thousands of public sector employees on to the streets last Tuesday week. The Minister for the Public Service has been engaged in Civil Service bashing since he took up office, as I have outlined. It would seem that he deliberately sets out to paint a picture of the Irish Civil Service as comprised of people with cushy jobs who do little or no work and are no better than parasites living off the taxpayer. The Minister likes to present himself as the great crusader who would like to change that.
Civil servants rightly regard this as a libel on themselves which they and all who have first hand knowledge of the capacity and calibre of the Civil Service resent bitterly. The many thousands of civil servants who have been characterised, as I have just described, by the Minister for the Public Service over the past three years must have smiled cynically to themselves when the Minister went on television to say that he was against those who were involved in Civil Service bashing and to pay tribute to the staff. Public servants will have little difficulty in identifying the real civil servant basher.
The Minister for the Public Service and the Government must realise the damage they have done to the Civil Service in the way they have constantly kicked it around and because of the shape and manner in which they have continued to portray it. Every Minister and ex-Minister of this House will testify to the high competence and total integrity of our Civil Service. This has been one of our country's great assets at home and abroad down the years, and that any Government should set out as this Government have done to degrade the Civil Service is nothing short of disgraceful. Not to be unfair to the Minister for the Public Service, let me say that the Minister for Education made probably some of the worst remarks of all and they will be dealt with by some of the other speakers to this motion. Apart from her morality speech, she said when talking about the loyalty of civil servants, "They give that kind of service because they appreciate the special conditions of employment they enjoy, the most advantageous being permanency as well as very generous pension rights." Nobody could agree with that comment. They give because of dedication to their job and nothing else. That remark was totally unfair as was the rest of the speech which she made in O'Shea's Hotel.
Civil servants have no voice in this Chamber and I would like to put down some facts here. Since 1981 we have had the 22nd, 23rd and 24th pay rounds which commenced on 1 December 1981 and ended on 31 December. Inflation is about 37 or 38 per cent and the civil servants received an increase of 24 per cent, 14 per cent less than the inflation rate. The Minister for the Public Service and others in the Government say that public servants have got all their increases in line with inflation. If that is wrong the Minister can correct me later, but on my figures they have lost 14 per cent, which surely pays for their permanent, pensionable and recession-proof jobs. Was it not the Taoiseach who when this House met last on 11 July this year said that, this is now one of the healthiest economies in Europe with a growth rate higher than anywhere else; that this year the after tax income of workers will be up rather than down, that purchasing power will rise for the first time in six years, that private consumption and living standards will rise for the first time in years? Shortly afterwards the Dáil went into recess. On 14 August the Government stated that there should be no pay increase in the public service for at least 12 months after the expiry date of the 24th round. That is an extraordinary change about in a few weeks.
There is no argument about this country's economic difficulties, but on the question of pay determination it is essential that some conditions exist to determine public servants' wages. An agreed and independent neutral party to whom disputes between employers and workers can be referred is also essential. The alternative which we now have is confrontation in which the winner is the group who can inflict the most damage.
Comparison with the pay of workers in outside bodies doing comparable work has been the principle in determining pay for the public sector since the fifties. The Labour Court and the Public Service Arbitration Board are the independent third parties to whom disputes in the public service are referred for recommendation. The arbitrator, usually a senior counsel, is agreed by both unions and Government. It was to maintain this system that thousands went on strike on Tuesday of last week. During the week I read the Official Report of 30 March 1938, column 1196, volume 70 when Deputy Costello moved:
That the Dáil is of opinion that the Government should immediately establish machinery whereby conditions of employment in the Civil Service and other matters which may from time to time be in dispute between the Government and the Civil Service would be settled by agreement between the representatives of the Government and of the Civil Service associations, and, in default of such agreement, would be submitted for decision to an independent arbitration board, the awards of which, subject to the overriding authority of the Oireachtas, the Government would undertake to implement.
He went on to fight the case for arbitration and he ended up by saying, and I quote from column 1210 of the same volume:
For these reasons I believe that this machinery of arbitration should be set up in the public interest — not in the interest of a Party or even of the personnel of the Civil Service, but in the interest of an incorruptible Civil Service, an efficient Civil Service, and an independent Civil Service and, ultimately and in the last analysis, in the general interests of the public — of the people of this country at the present time and of the generations to be in the future.
We are in that future and the Minister for the Public Service is trying extremely hard to dismantle the conciliation and arbitration machinery which has served the country well for 30 years.
I shall conclude by making some constructive suggestions by way of trying to overcome the impasse. The road the Minister is taking is not leading anywhere, but I do not think that the unions, public service employees or any of us in Opposition have any wish for further strikes. It was a shame that last week's stoppage occurred. It was caused by delay, procrastination, arrogant statements and so on. Action must be taken now to avoid any further national stoppage.
The adoption of the following recommendations would not cause any loss of face to anyone and would solve the dispute quickly. These recommendations are, first, the re-appointment of the arbitrator and the continued operation as before of the conciliation and arbitration scheme. Secondly, the Minister should invite the public service committee to discuss at an early date a possible 25th round pay agreement for the public service which would take into account any pay related matters other than awards made already. Thirdly, with regard to the special grade findings which have either been signed by the arbitrator or are pending signature, the Government should negotiate with the individual unions concerned and with the public service executive of the ICTU a solution which would be acceptable both to the Government and to the unions. If that is not possible the Government should bring their proposals to the Dáil. At that stage the House could decide whether to accept or reject the proposal. Lastly, as a matter of urgency, the Government should call on the public service unions to enter into meaningful discussions on the present conciliation and arbitration system for public pay determination. In the meantime the present system should continue as before.
There is much room for discussion on the conciliation and arbitration system which may be both in the interest of the Government and of the public service unions. The conciliation and arbitration schemes for the public service, local authorities, teachers and the Garda are similar, with the exception that the Civil Service and the teachers have a clause whereby a decision must be brought before this House if agreement cannot be reached. Perhaps it would be in the interest of the nation if a pay research board, to which there has been reference frequently, for the public service and the private sector were established.
Invariably what happens is that the public service accept the minimum and then must endeavour by way of grade claims to keep in line with people in comparable positions in the private sector. On that basis the various findings of the board either in the public or the private sector could be examined and in that way a clearer indication could be given as to what increase the country could or could not afford at any time, taking into account the different and varying circumstances of the sectors involved. If such a board were established and functioning properly, the conciliation and arbitration scheme might not be as overburdened with grade claims as it is now.
I ask the House to support the motion, to re-appoint the Arbitrator and restore the proper machinery for the resolution of disputes. This is the key issue in the present impasse. By acting in this way the Minister would not be prevented from seeking and entering into discussions on machinery for the future. The Minister's argument can be compared to that of his colleague, the Minister for Labour, entering into discussions on his industrial relations document by asking first that the unions shut down the Labour Court in order to concentrate the minds of the unions. The success of the Minister for Labour in such action should be self evident and I contend that the same fate faces the Minister for the Public Service. He should acknowledge his misjudgment and announce to the House this evening the appointment of the Arbitrator. Then we could move forward. Otherwise the country will face many difficulties and much argument. The Minister never thought matters would reach the stage they are at now. He was advised badly and he adopted an arrogant approach. He should avail of this debate to end the matter now rather than waiting until several more national strikes have taken place.