Top public servants lobbied over pay

TOP-PAID public servants escaped the full wage cuts imposed on their lower-paid colleagues after lobbying the finance minister and claiming the loss of their bonus payments should be taken into account.

Brian Lenihan’s decision to exempt them from the cuts has outraged teachers, nurses, Gardaí and other public servants who have had wage cuts of 5% to 7% as part of the Government’s cost-cutting measures.

While workers such as cleaners earning €30,000 took a cut in the region of €1,500, around 150 assistant secretaries at the top of the civil service had their basic salaries cut by just 3% from a maximum of €150,000 to €146,000.

Mr Lenihan decided days before Christmas that about 600 public workers earning up to €150,000 should not be subject to the full cuts as they had already lost 10% of their earnings through a freeze on bonuses.

The controversial decision was made two months after he received representations from the Association of Assistant Secretaries and Higher Grades (AASHG).

The group said: “There can be no justification for a further decrease in our current remuneration. In other more favourable economic circumstances, this data would overwhelmingly support the case for an increase.”

Documents released yesterday show the group wrote to Mr Lenihan in October arguing the bonus payments were integral to their remuneration package. It said if the minister had plans to cut their pay “we would contend this should take into account the 10% reduction that has already applied to our pay levels”.

In their correspondence to the Government, the top public servants suggested there were too many people employed in the public service and this issue should be addressed as an alternative to salary cuts.

In a series of letters they also claimed their wages were way behind the private sector equivalent. AASHG said recruiting assistant secretaries for Government departments in recent years has “highlighted the stark inability to attract people at the appropriate levels from the private sector due in large measures to the inadequacy of the remuneration package on offer”.