Cabinet set to agree freeze on pay increases for ministers
Separate rises for serving TDs though will have to be voluntarily returned, the Government confirmed, after calls for deputies to also give up top-up payments.
Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe is set to bring a note to Cabinet next week to ask his colleagues to forego increases, due under the restoration of public service pay cuts.
Changes in the Haddington Road Agreement meant cabinet members would receive €4,000 a year for the next three years and TDs €5,000 over the next two years.
Opposition TDs have compared the planned increases to the meagre €5 weekly rise announced for pensioners, carers, and widows, among others, in this week’s budget.
The previous Fine Gael-Labour government had decided all senior and junior ministers would not take the scheduled pay rises.
A spokeswoman for Mr Donohoe yesterday confirmed a measure to reaffirm the freezing of the increases would be brought to Cabinet.
Mr Donohoe had defended the increases earlier, saying that they were tied to a pay agreement. But there was a backlash after the budget. Education Minister Richard Bruton, however, confirmed the changes to the Dáil.
He said politicians “need to take a lead in respect of being more economical”.
But Deputy Mary Lou-McDonald told the Dáil “a stop must be put” to all hikes for TDs, ministers, and the Taoiseach.
She also noted that, under the planned pay increase, Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s salary would have risen to €200,000 next March.
Health Minister Simon Harris, however, hinted it would be more difficult to deny pay rises to TDs. “We have a situation where TDs’ pay has been linked to civil service pay,” he said, pointing out that in Ireland, unlike some other jurisdictions, politicians do not set their own pay.
“TDs, who are non-ministers, are linked to a grade in the civil service — the pay went down when that grade went down and they go up when that grade went up.
“We would need to consider carefully unintended consequences of decoupling that and making the setting of politicians’ pay, political.”
Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice has said he will gift his increases back to the exchequer.
Other TDs, including the Social Democrat’s Catherine Murphy, called on deputies to refuse their top-up payments.
