Average public worker earns more than €50,000 a year

The average public worker’s salary has broken through the €50,000 barrier, it was revealed today.

The release of the official figures sparked demands from business leaders for the Government to publish planned cutbacks in the sector.

But trade union leaders insisted the average €50,598 a year take-home pay did not take account of income and pension levies that kicked in last month.

Niall Shanahan, spokesman for public sector trade union Impact, said the Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures up until March do not reflect shifting trends since then.

“I think the figures will be used by a lot of people to argue in favour of pay cuts,” he said.

“Our detractors have been singing from the same hymn sheet now for a number of years so this will be used as further ammunition.

“But the fact of the matter is that they don’t reflect what has happened since May. There’s been a very substantial pay decrease that exceeds the deflationary trend for public servants.”

The CSO report shows overall average weekly earnings in the public sector rose by 3.4% to 973.04 euro in the year up to March, or by just more than 12% over three years.

The figure puts public sector pay at €12,000 more than the average industrial wage, at €38,000, and €10,000 more than the average private sector worker, at €40,500.

The highest rises over the three-year period were in Defence (17.5%) and Third Level Education (17.9%).

Workers in the overall Education sector saw their average earnings grow 10% over the same period while Garda wages, inclusive of overtime, rose by almost 6%.

However, Garda pay – including overtime – fell 4% to €1,177.54 a week over the final year.

The report also showed there were 371,200 people employed in the public sector as of March, after an extra 2,900 staff were taken on during the year.

Mr Shanahan said the overall average pay hike could be accounted for by two rises under the national wage agreement, in March and September last year.

The effect of these two separate 2.5% increases were effectively neutralised by inflation at the time and the trend was now shifting, according to the Impact spokesman.

“As of May of this year, the average public service wage was reduced by 7.5% because of the effect of the public service pension levy,” he said.

“Because of that, and the effect of the recruitment embargo, the trend is changing now. There’s no decrease for demand in public services – if anything, there’s an increased demand, which is one of the natural effects of the recession.

“We’re at a point now where the trends are shifting very significantly and unfortunately those trends point to an overall threat to the capacity to deliver public services at the rate at which they are needed.”

Isme, which represents small and medium businesses, claimed the CSO report showed the public sector was expanding and increasing wages at a time when everyone else was suffering.

“With the public sector pay bill now accounting for over 40% of current expenditure, and growing, the country cannot afford to finance its expansion,” said Isme chief executive Mark Fielding.

“As the private sector suffers company closures, pay cuts and job losses we cannot afford to allow a parallel universe where public sector workers increase in both numbers and pay rates”.

Mr Fielding said the figures demanded the full publication of the cost-cutting plans of the so-called An Bord Snip, which is reported to have identified €5bn in public spending savings to be brought before Government this week.