The Government has accepted proposals for an increase in TDs' salaries by almost 19 per cent which will bring the annual pay of a member of Dail Eireann up from £39,000 to £46,500. In addition, Ministers' salaries are being brought above the £100,000 mark for the first time.
Senators get an even larger percentage increase, with their salaries rising by 31 per cent from almost £25,000 to £32,500 annually. Salaries for Oireachtas members will in future rise automatically in line with increases for civil servants at principal officer (standard) grade.
The increases, recommended by a review body report which was released under a 7 p.m. embargo to the media last night, drew a tongue-in-cheek response from the leader of secondary teachers currently in dispute with the Government over pay. Mr Charlie Lennon, general secretary of the ASTI, said: "We congratulate the people concerned on achieving such a substantial increase, and we look forward to achieving a similar increase for teachers in the Labour Court."
The Taoiseach's salary increases by over 22 per cent from the current £114,500 to £140,000 per annum and Minister's pay rises from approximately £91,500 to a flat £110,000.
The report argues in favour of the increase for Ministers on the basis that "the business of Government is now more complex and demanding than ever before". Economic, political and social changes had imposed "enormous demands" on Ministers and "current salaries . . . provide very inadequate compensation for the workloads borne by them".
The proposals are contained in Report No. 38 to the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, from the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector, chaired by a senior executive with AIB, Mr Michael Buckley. "In line with the established Government policy of accepting the recommendations of this independent review body, the Government has decided to accept and implement the recommendations," a statement from the Department of Finance said.
Top public servants will get pay rises of between 9.5 per cent and 33.3 per cent, although some will get no increase at all. The report says that, in most cases, salaries of senior staff are "very substantially out of line" with comparable posts in the private sector. It predicts serious recruitment difficulties at senior levels and consequent damage to economic progress without significant pay rises.
The secretary general of the Department of Finance, whose pay rises 33.3 per cent to £135,000 per annum, gets the biggest public sector increase. Most other secretaries general of Departments get pay rises of 25.4 per cent, to £120,000.
The review breaks the previous pay parity between the Garda Commissioner and the Chief-of-Staff of the Defence Forces. The Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, sees his annual salary rise by 28.5 per cent to £110,000, while the report recommends a 5.2 per cent increase, to £90,000, for the Chief-of-Staff, Lieut Gen Colm Mangan. The Government has decided to amend this increase to £100,000.
All increases are being introduced on a phased basis, with the first instalment backdated to last September - the date of the report - and the last payable in April 2002.
Of the total cost of £18 million, £11 million is due to increases for hospital consultants, who get a 10 per cent increase.
Asked what teachers currently in dispute would make of the announcement, a Government spokesman said the salary increases were proof of the benefit of benchmarking. Secondary teachers in the ASTI have refused to engage with the benchmarking review proposed by the Government.