Cabinet Ministers will still be eligible for pay restoration of €5,400 as part of their TD salary even if they agree to forgo ministerial increases due next year under public pay policy.
Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe is due to bring a memo to Cabinet next week on refusing the proposed ministerial rise.
Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have allowed their party TDs to make up their own mind about whether to accept the increase. As a result, the Cabinet memo is not expected to include TD pay.
If TDs accept the rise in their salaries, then Ministers who forgo the additional payment will still be eligible for €2,700 of pay restoration a year from April 2017 and again in 2018.
The pay of Cabinet Ministers is comprised of their basic TD salary (currently €87,258) and an additional ministerial component of €70,282, for a total of €157,540.
They had been due to receive €3,900 from next April 1st and the same again for each of the following two years, which included the TD portion of their salary.
Keep the link
TD salaries used to be separate to those of other civil servants, but they are now linked to the salary of a principal officer in the civil service – and they want to keep that link.
Public servants earning €80,000-€150,000 had their salary reduced by 8 per cent, or €5,400, in legislation following the economic crash in order to achieve savings of €1 billion.
Under the terms negotiated in the Haddington Road and Lansdowne Road agreements, they will begin to get their pay restored next year.
Independent Alliance Minister of State Finian McGrath, who sits at Cabinet, said he and Minister for Transport Shane Ross would not accept the TD or ministerial increase. He said they were in discussion with other members of the Alliance.
“We all should take the hit,” said Mr McGrath in the wake of the row about social welfare increases of €5.
He said giving up the increase was not popular with other Ministers and TDs, “but that’s my personal opinion”.
The Minister of State, who has responsibility for disability, said “we’re just coming out of the recession and we’re going into Brexit”. He believed the money saved should be put into services.
Show leadership
Independent Minister for Communications Denis Naughten said he did not know "the ins and outs" of ministerial and TD increments. "As far as I'm concerned, the Ministers need to show leadership."
Mr Naughten referred to the budgets for health and education. “We should be leading by example. Every Minister and TD is going to have to make up their own mind.”
Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald insisted in the Dáil that either the Government “put a definitive stop” to the increase for Ministers, TDs and Senators, or Sinn Féin would introduce an amendment to the Finance Bill or produce legislation on the issue.
