OPPOSITION PARTIES have pledged to pursue the Government over what they claim are inequitable pay cuts in the public service that discriminate against those on lower grades.
They claim that public servants on lower grades will lose a higher percentage of basic salary than individuals at assistant secretary level or higher.
However, a Department of Finance spokesman said it would have been unfair not to take into account the ending of a bonus scheme for senior grades when calculating pay cuts at that level.
Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton and Labour spokeswoman Joan Burton both intend raising the issue when the Dáil resumes on January 19th.
Mr Bruton said last night that, if it was the Government’s intention to take the ending of the bonus scheme into account, “it should have been part of the legislation and approved by the Dáil”.
The move was announced in a department circular dated December 22nd and Mr Bruton commented: “To put it out under the cover of Christmas shows that they were ashamed of what they were doing – and rightly so.”
He added: “Essentially this is a deal to suit people who are at the top of the tree in the public service and it is simply not fair the way it is being structured.”
Ms Burton said that the Labour Party would be insisting that the legislation – the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (No 2) Act 2009 – had priority over any circular.
“The whole thing is a complete sleight of hand,” she said, adding that “under any ordinary reading” the legislation did not involve taking account of bonuses.
“It is extremely disadvantageous for people on the lower pay grades because they end up carrying the burden for people on the higher grades,” Ms Burton said.
The department spokesman said that the Minister had the power, under section 6 of the Act, to take account of exceptional circumstances where “a substantial inequity” would arise.
“The Government decided to terminate the performance-related awards for certain Civil Service grades . . . the implementation of the pay reductions set out in the Budget without taking account of this decision would have imposed on average a reduction in excess of the reduction for all other public servants [except the Taoiseach]. This was not judged to have been fair to these grades,” he added.