Overtime boosts garda pay to almost €67,000 a year

GARDAÍ are earning an average of almost €67,000 a year — €15,000 of it overtime — according to figures released by the Central Statistics Office.

The average weekly pay for a garda before overtime in December 2006 was €1,000. When overtime was added that rose to €1,286, an annual salary of €66,872. That is more than double the average industrial wage, which in December 2006 stood at €32,432.

The CSO figures released yesterday showed the average public sector wage, excluding the health sector, stood at €46,728. After the gardaí, the next highest average earning public sector employees were prison officers whose average earnings were €59,962.

There were 249,800 people employed in the public sector, excluding health, in December 2006.

ISME, the independent business organisation said the new Government must immediately address “the anomaly that is public sector pay” which it claimed had created a 44% gap between private and public sector.

“We now have a surreal situation in which a sector of our economy already better paid than their counterparts in the private sector, are lining up their claims for a shorter working week — being paid more for working less,” said ISME chief executive Mark Fielding. “No matter how we look at it, higher pay means higher taxes, whether disguised as ‘charges’ or ‘stealth taxes.’”

He said the public sector is already remunerated way in excess of the unsheltered private sector.

“Unless the public sector is brought into line, including the pay element, the rest of the economy will be left to pick up the pieces in price/wage inflation and increased tax rates which will ultimately lead to an uncontrolled crash landing, the impact of which we can only imagine.”

ISME is now demanding, among other things:

nvalue for money audits being carried out in each and every Government department.

na requirement of a minimum 25% in the number of recruits from the private sector for management positions within public sector.

n the introduction of private sector employees into specific public sector areas to carry out administrative and secretarial tasks.

However, IMPACT trade union which represents a large percentage of the public workers said pay was now rising almost twice as fast in comparable parts of the private sector than in public services.

“The CSO figures for average industrial pay are not a study of the entire private sector. Rather, they describe a limited sample of manufacturing jobs. The public sector pay bill includes a very wide range of professions from the top to the bottom of public service organisations where staff are more qualified and more likely to be professionals, technicians or managers. It is deliberately misleading to say that public sector pay is 40% ahead of comparable workers in the private sector,” said Bernard Harbour of the union.

Announcement of the public service pay figures comes as the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Service is due to report within months to the Department of Finance on whether to increase the salaries of 100 senior posts in the public service.

Those in line for massive pay rises included top brass in the gardaí and defence forces, top medical personnel and chief executives of State-sponsored bodies such as Enterprise Ireland.