Ministers' pay-rises should be cancelled - Opposition

ANY CUTBACKS in public spending should include the cancellation of ministerial pay-rises as a priority, the main Opposition parties said at the weekend.

Fine Gael said the increases should be cancelled immediately, while Labour claimed the Government lacked moral authority because it was seen to be one of the “biggest feeders at the trough”.

Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton said there seemed to be a consensus that exchequer figures to be released this week would reveal “the sharpest deterioration in the public finances in the history of the State”.

Asked what Fine Gael was urging the Government to do he said: “Halt the crazy extravagance. Set up systems to ruthlessly pursue waste within the public service. Adopt performance-driven budgeting so that you only put up money where success is being delivered.

“The Government has to tackle overcharging of consumers . . . in the shops and for services such as electricity and transport.”

He added: “The pay rises for Ministers should be cancelled immediately. Since the election the Government has been living in a world of its own, with the appointment of three new ministers of state, not to mention committee chairs, vice-chairs and convenors in Leinster House.”

Asked if a Fine Gael-led government would eliminate the three new junior minister positions, he said: “Yes, of course, the three new ones are ridiculous. It was nothing to do with vital tasks that had suddenly been discovered. You have to halt extravagance and the extravagance is there for all to see.”

Labour’s finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said: “The Government have no moral authority in lecturing other people to cut back if they themselves are seen to be the biggest feeders at the trough.”

She said: “Any expenditure cutbacks should not be of the ‘slash and burn’ variety. The protection of essential services should be a priority. Already there are indiscriminate cutbacks in the HSE.

“The Government must proceed with key infrastructure investments . . . at the moment there are a lot of noises that public transport programmes could be cut back.

“Decentralisation should be reviewed . . . including the capital costs of new buildings and the costs of redeploying civil servants.

“In education, a lot of long-promised capital programmes for refurbishing existing secondary schools are already being delayed and deferred. At local government level, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that water drainage and sewerage schemes are going back to the Department of the Environment for further . . . revaluation.”

Claiming the Government was creating “an air of panic”, Ms Burton continued: “The economy isn’t in complete meltdown. The Government needs to get a grip, protecting really important capital projects and protecting the most vulnerable in our society.”

She added: “If the Government gets this wrong and puts the economy into a steeper decline then we could be in a deeper recession and the Government would be the authors of it. There is a lot to be said for spending on schools and similar infrastructure because it sustains activity and maintains employment in the construction sector.”