I thank Deputy Ryan for raising this important issue. I will take this opportunity once again to acknowledge and pay tribute to the immense contribution made by our public servants, in particular across our health services, during the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. Their efforts ensured we kept services to the public and to the vulnerable in our society running, to the greatest extent possible, in the most challenging of circumstances. In recognition of this, the Deputy will be aware the Government provided for a…

The special leave with pay scheme was an exceptional intervention, which was warranted back in March 2020 because of the need to ensure people who contracted Covid did not have to go to work and would be paid accordingly. It was never designed as an instrument in itself to deal with long Covid, which was not even recognised at the time as being in existence. We have the standard public service sick leave scheme and, as I have acknowledged, there is also the critical illness cover. There are examples of public servi…

The Minister for Health is acutely conscious of this issue and there is work on it ongoing within his Department. There are legacy cases of people who, unfortunately, contracted Covid, quite possibly in the workplace, at a time when the risks were not fully known. They went to work to protect everybody else. The Department of Health is working on proposals that will be shared with my Department once they are finalised and we will respond as quickly as we can. The general public service sick pay scheme continues in …

As Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, I am responsible for setting the overall capital allocations for Departments and for monitoring monthly expenditure at departmental level. The responsibility for the management and delivery of individual investment projects, within the allocations agreed under the national development plan, rests with the individual sponsoring Department in each case. The Government has committed €165 billion for capital investment, as set out in the national development plan, NDP, pub…

In agreeing an NDP out to 2030 and setting capital budgets for each Department out to 2025, we now have a multi-annual framework that will enable Ministers and their Departments to plan the delivery of vital infrastructure projects over a number of years. At €12 billion this year, we have the largest ever capital budget and there is an obligation on every Department to ensure we are working in a coherent and consistent manner towards the implementation of the national planning framework and implementing the NDP in …

On that point, as the Deputy may be aware, we are setting up a new climate division within my Department because we sit at the centre of government and have a key role in ensuring Government policy will be applied consistently throughout the Departments. Agreeing the multi-annual capital framework has enabled Departments to undertake that co-ordinated forward planning he talked about. It is important schools be built in tandem with the delivery of homes in order that as children grow up, school places will be avail…

We already had a priority question from Deputy Patricia Ryan on this issue. I will reiterate some of the key points I think are relevant. First is the importance of having a collective agreement. We have collective agreements now consecutively since 2010 when the Croke Park agreement was negotiated. It has by and large served us well over the last 12 years in that we have had continued industrial peace through that period although, of course, there have been different disputes at different points in time. We have s…

On the question of tax, we have a programme for Government commitment that I strongly support. If we were to have a static tax system in which no changes were made at a time of rising incomes, it would be the equivalent of an increase in income tax. I do not believe it is fair that workers who earn that little bit more would then be paying more than half that in tax through USC, income tax and PRSI. Therefore, I anticipate there will be changes in respect of income tax but it will be about keeping pace with the rea…

We are not going to agree a new public service pay deal here; it will only be done at the WRC. Those very issues the Deputy legitimately raised are the subject of discussions at this very moment. We need to allow that process to take its course and conclude and, hopefully, it will reach a successful conclusion. I want a deal. It is in everyone's interests to have industrial peace and reach a settlement that is fair to public service workers and that takes account of the level of pressure people are experiencing in …

The Deputy raises an important point about the secondary effects of a pay rise. We will have to pay close attention to the issue of ensuring that work pays because we are seeing job vacancies and labour shortages throughout the economy. We have to examine all aspects of the system and how they interact with each other to make sure that any disincentives to work currently embedded in the system are weeded out so we can enable, encourage and facilitate people to work and we do not punish them in that way. The Deputy …

As we approach budget 2023 there will be many demands, and we will not be able to meet all of them. The Government will have to prioritise and make choices as to what the priorities are. At a time when people are under considerable pressure, the priority will have to be to address cost-of-living issues, particularly for low-income and middle-income households, to ensure we assist them at this time. There will be many ambitions across the government to implement the programme for Government in full and to expand and…

The talks under way are focused on public service pay. There have been wider discussions at the Labour Employer Economic Forum, LEEF, on other issues that the Government can assist with in respect of the cost of living and public policy on a range of key issues for employers and employees. We have implemented a range of measures so far. The Deputy will be well aware of them. If one goes back to the most recent budget and what we have done since, it was in the order of €2.4 billion. That is why I have made the point…

I do not think my Department groups the questions.

I will check that, but the substance of the Deputy's point is fair.

Is it? Okay.

I propose to take Questions Nos. 94 and 97 together. The Deputy made a very good point. In the current agreement we provided for a sectoral bargaining fund. For example, on 1 February there was the option of taking the flat 1% increase or putting that into a sectoral bargaining fund. The public service was divided up into a large number of sectoral bargaining units and there have been examples where that fund was used to address specific targeted issues in individual sectors. There are still some ongoing negotiatio…

There are a significant number of vacancies across the system, in particular in healthcare. Recruitment is too slow. That is definitely having an impact on service delivery and we need to address that. In addition to having a mechanism where we agree general round increases, the Deputy raised the specific point about individual sectors. Of course, there is always the potential knock-on consequence of relativities. Different groups will examine how other groups fare in discussions on public service pay. I am aware o…

I thank the Deputy very much for raising that point. It is a principle that we embedded in the current agreement, Building Momentum, that for each general round increase, a floor was set so that the benefit should be at least €500, even though it was to be 1% overall. If that 1% resulted in less than €500 for individual workers, then they would be given €500 in the general round. The percentage increase for them was greater than for workers generally under the public service pay agreement. That is a principle that …

Of course. At the end of the day, we provide public services with a view to them reaching where they are needed and that citizens receive services. That is ultimately what having a public service pay deal or a fit-for-purpose public service is all about. We do need to have accountability, so that where public money is being provided through Votes in this Oireachtas, that it is used for the purpose for which it is intended. Deputy Calleary's specific point about ensuring there is a mechanism to address particular pa…

I think it is about a blend of measures. As I stated earlier, it is not solely down to pay to address cost-of-living pressures that undoubtedly exist. The Government has other levers. We have used some of them to date in the exceptional measures that have been introduced outside of the normal budgetary calendar. It is open to the Government to use some of those in the context of the budget as well. The cost of living can be addressed in a number of ways. Pay is one and obviously social welfare measures, and other t…