GOVERNMENT PAY:THE GOVERNMENT's decision to impose pension levies on State employees will cost TDs nearly €10,000 a year, while Ministers will lose nearly €20,000 annually.
This drop in Ministers’ income will be in addition to the 10 per cent pay cut they have already accepted.
Speaking in the Dáil yesterday Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said senior public servants, including some members of the Oireachtas, who had volunteered to take a salary cut could now have their full salary restored.
Their contribution to assisting the public finances could now be made through the new pension levy, he said.
However, Government Ministers had decided to continue with their 10 per cent voluntary pay cut in addition to paying the new pension contribution of 9 per cent.
“We believe that those in positions of leadership in all parts of the country should and must lead by example,” he said.
In a separate development, Independent MEP Kathy Sinnott has said she will take a 20 per cent pay cut and has written to all Irish MEPs, TDs and Senators asking them to do the same.
She has urged them to join her outside the front gates of Dáil Éireann at noon next Tuesday, when she will instruct the Office of the Houses of the Oireachtas to reduce her salary.
Irish MEPs’ wages are paid by the Oireachtas at the same rate as TDs and Senators (€7,791 a month for 2008), while expenses and staff costs are covered by the European Parliament, according to a spokeswoman for the European Parliament office in Ireland.
After the upcoming European elections in June, a new statute will come into force and most MEPs will be paid by the European Parliament at a standard rate of €7,339.
Ms Sinnott said: “This month so many people are being made unemployed, they are taking 100 per cent pay cuts. I’m not looking for personal glory.”
A move by MEPs, TDs and Senators to surrender a fifth of their salaries could “hopefully take pressure off lower paid public servants” and pressure senior private executives “to catch the bug”.
In her letter, Ms Sinnott wrote: “We all know that there are difficult times ahead and I truly believe that the only way to tackle these successfully is to put ‘politicking’ and political manoeuvring aside.”
Fianna Fáil TD Michael Kennedy has called on judges to take a 10 per cent pay cut. Under the Constitution, the pay of judges cannot be reduced during their term of office and none of them accepted a reduction after the Budget.
However, Mr Kennedy said the judges could make a gift of a percentage of their salary to the State “if they wish to assist in the resolution of this economic crisis”.
“It is important now, more than ever, that everyone plays their part in leading us out of this recession and I would strongly urge our country’s judges to step up to the plate and agree on a universal 10 per cent cut within their field,” he said.