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Verona Murphy wins first-ever Dáil vote of confidence in a Ceann Comhairle by 96 votes to 71
Michael Noonan had been unable to convince all NTMA staff to take voluntary pay reductions - so now NTMA workers will lose their exemptions from across-the-board cuts. Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland
Public Pay
NTMA and NAMA staff will lose exemption from new public pay cuts
Some staff at the NTMA refused to take voluntary pay cuts – so now the agency will be liable to mandatory deductions.
STAFF AT THE National Treasury Management Agency and its subsidiaries, including NAMA, will lose their exemption from public pay cuts under the latest legislation to cut public pay.
Staff at the NTMA and its subsidiaries, including NAMA and the National Pensions Reserve Fund, have enjoyed a specific legal exemption from the proposed pay cuts since the first legislation enforcing emergency pay cuts was enrolled in 2009.
However, the latest update to the ‘Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest’ legislation, published this afternoon in tandem with the new public sector pay proposals, removes the exemption – meaning NTMA and NAMA staff will be subject to the same pay cuts as others.
The exemption follows unsuccessful attempts by the government to have the agency’s highest-earning staff take voluntary pay cuts.
Last month Michael Noonan confirmed that three staff at the NTMA would not be following their colleagues in taking a voluntary 15 per cent pay cut – even though the NTMA chief executive John Corrigan, and NAMA chief Brendan McDonagh, were taking voluntary cuts.
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Earlier this month Noonan added that he did not plan to hold any further consultations on staff pay, all but affirming that the government had abandoned any hope of encouraging the highest staff to take voluntary cuts.
The current government introduced a €200,000 pay cap for any public workers shortly after coming into office – but says it is legally unable to change the contracts of existing staff.
The voluntary pay cuts are now likely to be reduced, to take into account the legal deductions to the pay of top staff, though the net effect will be that top earners – who had refused to take 15 per cent pay cuts – will now lose 10 per cent of their gross wage.
The Railway Procurement Agency is also removed from the list of state agencies whose staff enjoy exemptions from the pay cuts.
Other agencies whose workers retain an exemption include the airport authorities for Dublin, Cork and Shannon, CIE, the ESB, RTÉ and Coillte.
The legislation published today also ensures that members of the judiciary and of the Oireachtas will face pay cuts equal to those of others on the public payroll.
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Well done lads. People homeless and good educated kids leaving the Country in the thousands and all they worry about is a prayer. Well Trump will have the last laugh on these politicians and I hope he recinds the invite for Paddys Day to them
@Gerard Mahady: top comment 100% the invasion and erosion of our culture and land by Islam enabled by our liberal left government and opposition and sure we the people are all far right better watch what we say especially after the Garda bugging of journalists in our so called democracy freedom of speech will be a distant memory
@I’m a robot Robot: we have established right wing parties only very recently. They are very inexperienced and it will take a few years for people to trust them handling our problems. It will inevitably happen where we will get an actual right wing party. Next election will definitely see a growth in right wing parties popularity. 8 years time there will be a right wing party in charge no doubt. Just look across Europe. Reform UK were established recently, and didn’t get voted in because people didn’t trust them handling the money because of their inexperience. Now Nigel Farge is favourite to be the next prime minister of the UK. (Check Paddy Power). Right wing parties are winning in Sweden, Austria, Denmark, US, Canada, Australia, NZ, Germany, Italy, Poland etc. It’s inevitable thankfully
It would be much better if the state took the church to court for the hundreds of millions, still owed, to the people of Ireland for what happened to our citizens.
@Jimmy Donovan:
Hundreds of Millions from where? What do you thinks the market values of cathedrals, monasteries and churches are? Mostly negative equity considering the maintenance costs.
We are facing dangerous times and this . Please don’t waste our time with nonsense. The best can can be managed are compensation schemes, which mean the we the taxpayers pay, for state negligence 50 + years ago. BTW these compensation /redress schemes should be out, they are totally abused with false and exaggerated claims
None of the above ideas will ever come to fruition. All I can see is the moment of reflection being brought in. As your asking a Minister to be held accountable, your making me laugh writing this. As it’s the Civil Servants who are wasting money like the OPW – Office of Professional Wasters
@Vincent Alexander: Religion is forced on people…NO getting away with that. Look at the Apologies the RCC had to say about Native Canadian People. And THAT is not that far back in History.
Since they came back, they’ve elected a not so new taoiseach, had a week off, then decided to have a big hullabaloo over the. Irish language and proposed a moment of reflection to t replace a prayer. Have they done anything worthwhile since the Dail recovered?
SInn Fein in progressive vestments again. it used to be said the the quality of a government was due to the quality of the opposition. The Middle East and Ukraine are existential threats to everybody including us and this is SF’s big issue. A party which has dome it’s best to overthrow the state for 100 years so that they can start a Hamas inspired war with UK. WIle failing to notice the mayhem in the streets casued by their own failure to defend Ireland
It easy understand why people reelected the last government because the state of this opposition is unbelievable. They continue with stupid irrelevant clap trap about the most stupid rules and regulations.
Form a committee to discuss the remit of the committee and which snouts are in the trough. Do anything and everything to suit the new waves of the death cult fawning hamas loving brigade.
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