All members of the government will take a pay cut of 10 per cent in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, the taoiseach has said.
Micheál Martin announced yesterday that the reduction would apply from himself down to junior ministers.
The cabinet agreed to the change after Michael McGrath, the public expenditure minister, brought a memo to cabinet.
However, it later emerged that the taoiseach will be paid €1,500 more than his predecessor despite the pay cut. Senior ministers will earn just over €1,000 more.
It came after intense criticism of a decision to approve a €16,000 salary top-up to ensure all super junior ministers earn the same.
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John MacGabhann, the general secretary of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI), said that if pay equality could be achieved for super junior ministers, it should also be possible for teachers.
Some public sector employees, including teachers and consultant doctors, recruited after 2012 are paid less than colleagues hired before this date due to restrictions introduced during the financial crisis. Unions have been seeking to reverse these measures and increase the pay for newer recruits.
Mr MacGabhann said the TUI, which represents thousands of second and third-level teachers and lecturers, was seeking a meeting with the Department of Education to raise the issue again in light of the “super junior” controversy.
The Irish Medical Organisation (IMO), which represents doctors, accused the government of “gross hypocrisy” on the issue, saying that newly-recruited consultant doctors are paid up to 30 per cent less than their peers who joined before 2012.
Matthew Sadlier, a public health expert and a member of the IMO consultant committee, said that the pay difference “poisons” the morale of new hospital consultants and has been responsible for severe issues with the recruitment of doctors in the health service.
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Previous rules allowed two “super junior” ministers to be paid a €16,000 allowance, on top of their €124,439 salary. Super junior ministers are those who attend cabinet meetings alongside senior ministers, but do not get an official vote on decisions or responsibility for an entire department.
The new coalition government decided it wanted to appoint three super juniors, and passed new legislation which allowed for the third new minister to also receive the extra €16,000 payment.
Paschal Donohoe, the finance minister, said that this was done due to an issue of fairness.
“We have a number of ministers of state who sit around the cabinet table that were being paid differently. We were looking to get to a point that if they were all doing the same work, that they were paid the same,” he told Newstalk’s On The Record programme.
Mr MacGabhann said that the pay scales for teachers were still around 10 per cent lower than they were before 2012.
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“In the region of 35 per cent of our membership would be new entrants who haven’t seen their pay equalised with their colleagues teaching next door — they could teach the same subjects, the same students,” he told The Times.
“We find it remarkable that equality could be provided so rapidly for junior ministers. If this can be done for them, there is no good reason why the same principle can’t be applied to teachers or other public servants.”
He added: “We will be seeking a meeting with the Department of Education. We already have claims in about this, but they have clearly given new impetus to this.
“The observation will be made that what’s sauce for the goose, appears not to be sauce for the gander.
“It has caused annoyance, but you could say it is useful in that the government sees the need for pay equality. We would like that same commitment to pay equality to apply to people who have been languishing without it for years.”
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The Department of Education and Department of Finance had not responded to requests for comment at the time of publication.
