Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-07
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Jack Chambers (FF), Dublin West

I thank Deputy Bacik. I reject the Deputy's characterisation, which I think is unfair. If she thinks of the scale of public service growth in this country in the past five-to-six years, which this Government took positive action on, we have an additional 70,000 public servants working across health, education, disability services and many other areas of public service, which matter to all of us across our constituencies and we want to continue to build a public service that works and provides better inputs for the people we represent right across the country.
That is why the last two pay agreements have delivered fair, equitable and sustainable pay agreements for both the Exchequer and for public servants. That is why we rightly put an emphasis on lower paid workers. From 2019 pay has increased for the lowest paid in the public service by 30.7%. I can go through many different areas of the public service where we rightly protected and enhanced the pay of public servants.
The Government has been clear that we want to have a new pay agreement. We want to accommodate that in the context of budget 2027. It is important we have industrial peace and are able to plan for a new pay agreement with public service representatives. We have been concluding local bargaining, with which the Deputy is familiar, with many of the trade unions across different sectors over the past number of weeks and we want to have engagement without preconditions. That is what has happened over the last number of agreements. We have had engagement and exploratory discussions. That has built consensus around what is possible and that has formed the basis for an agreement.
I say to every public servant listening today: we want to ensure they are paid fairly, equitably and are given a fair deal in the context of a new pay agreement. That has absolutely been the case over the past number of years and nothing has changed in that regard. We want to see the public service unions engage. I think potentially balloting for strike action is unnecessary when we are a Government willing to engage with them. On the general question on the cost of living, we have been clear there will be an income tax package to reward work and support workers across the economy.
We want to ensure budget 2027 delivers on housing and infrastructure and that we protect the capital investment we have progressed in the last number of years, but also that we make a real impact in improved public service delivery and reduce the cost of living, with a priority around childcare, disability services and other areas as part of budget 2027. We must ensure that everything we decide to do is sustainable, affordable and within the fiscal parameters we have set out in the medium-term fiscal and structural plan. That creates trade-offs where we have to be realistic about what is possible in any budgetary cycle.
We want to see an agreement and engagement and I expect that will happen over the next number of weeks so that we can accommodate a new pay agreement in advance of budget 2027.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-07/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-07