MINISTERIAL AND HIGHER CIVIL SERVANT PAY:THE GOVERNMENT has said that controversial pay rises for Ministers and senior public servants sanctioned last year will not now be implemented.
Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said the issue would be reviewed in September 2010, but there was no guarantee they would be paid then.
Under the recommendations of the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Service, which were accepted by Cabinet last autumn, Ministers were to receive increases of between €25,000 and €38,000.
The Taoiseach was set to receive a pay rise of more than €38,000, bringing his salary to €310,000 per year. The pay of the Minister for Finance was to rise by 15.6 per cent to €270,000, while other Ministers were to get increases of 12 per cent to bring their salaries to €240,000.
After widespread public controversy on the issue last year, the Government in December decided to defer the first part of the Cabinet pay rises by a year and to pay the remainder of the increase in 2009 and 2010.
In recent months Brian Cowen has signalled that Ministers could forgo the increases in the context of a new national pay deal. Senior civil servants, judges, the chief executives of semi-State companies and senior academics will also be affected by the Government's decision not to implement the pay rises.
Under the review body report, the secretary general to the Government, Dermot McCarty, was to see his pay increase by 11 per cent to €303,000. The salary of the Dublin city manager, John Tierney, was to rise by 36 per cent to €250,000, while the pay of the DPP was to rise by 27.5 per cent to €270,000.
Senior public servants have already received the first phase of the increases under the review body recommendations, and Government sources said these would continue to be paid. However, other tranches due this year and next year will not come in.
Meanwhile, Mr Cowen said that a 2.5 per cent pay increase, due to more than 300,000 staff in the public sector in September under the Towards 2016 national agreement, would be paid.