The decision of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, AGSI, to withdraw from working on four days during November means we are now facing a full Garda strike in all but name. The deployment of reservists who do not have the power of arrest will hardly reassure vulnerable people or communities about how public safety will be preserved during these days.

The decision of the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland, ASTI, to withdraw from supervision and substitution work also means that there may well be significant closure of secondary schools, and half-baked notions put forward by the Minister for Education and Skills about using parents to cover these duties have been quickly shot down by the National Parents Council. The overall response of the Government to date to these very serious matters has been to repeat ad nauseam that the Lansdowne Road Agreement is the only game in town. I negotiated that agreement, as the Taoiseach knows, and I believe it was the right start for delivering pay recovery for all public servants who have contributed so much to the economic recovery of the State.

I also believe that it needs to be accelerated, and I said that a long time ago. The Lansdowne Road agreement was negotiated before the end of the Haddington Road agreement and in fact was collapsed into that agreement because of the visible improvement in our public finances. Exactly the same is true now. In the alternative budget that the Labour Party produced before the budget was introduced in the House last week, we allocated a sum of money to allow for the acceleration of public sector pay as a signal that we needed to have provision for a new discussion with all the public sector unions. Sadly, the budget presented last week made no such provision. It called for a new forum on social dialogues that can involve public servants in discussions about investment in public service as well as investment in their pay.

The key to getting success in the previous rounds was to be very honest with public servants about the options available to Government. The Taoiseach has resisted that idea also.

As the Taoiseach is aware, over recent years I have supported the granting of trade union rights to members of An Garda Síochána and conveyed those views to both the current and former Ministers for Justice and Equality. Today, we understand that the Taoiseach will establish a public sector pay commission but that this body will not report until next summer. That is hardly likely to be a timescale that would be of any assistance to the State in dealing with the current issues. The Taoiseach will not accept a proposal that the implementation of the Lansdowne Road agreement should be accelerated with a new discussion round with public servants. He will not accept a proposal relating to a new social dialogue, and the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality appears to be in no rush to grant rights to gardaí to avail of the machinery of trade unions. Does the Government intend to take any action that might prevent the further unravelling of the very hard won industrial peace in the public sector?

Deputy Howlin is correct when he says that he negotiated the Haddington Road and Lansdowne Road agreements, and he had a lot of support from the then Government. This is a very serious situation, and the Government takes it very seriously. Nobody wants to see a situation where Garda Síochána na hÉireann are not on public duty as the only link between criminal activity and the safety of citizens. I have always respected that in terms of the men and women of the Garda who have given of their time, and in some cases their lives, in the line of public duty, sometimes when officially off-duty. The Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality takes a responsible and clear view of this matter, and she is to meet with the Garda Representative Association, GRA, later this week. She has extended an invitation to the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, AGSI. There is still an opportunity to deal with this matter before the dates mentioned by the gardaí.

I want to make it perfectly clear that there are constraints upon the public purse, and we are not in a position to meet claims being made outside the Lansdowne Road agreement. Evidence of that is the negotiated settlements agreed between the Minister for Health and nurses in respect of incremental scales, the achievements and agreements reached by the Minister for Education and Skills with the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, INTO, and the Teachers Union of Ireland, TUI, the substantial amounts of money put on the table to deal with payment rates for young teachers and so on. Those are evidence of the success, and the possible success, of the agreements drawn up by Deputy Howlin.

This morning, the Government approved the setting up of a public pay commission. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform will give details on that at 3 o'clock this afternoon. While claims were made that particular sectors should be represented in the body of the commission, that is not the Minister's intention. What he will do, however, in the terms of reference is that if the public pay commission wishes to have expertise provided with an analysis of sectoral payments, conditions or whatever in respect of any particular sector, is make that available.

With regard to the issue I saw referred to in some of the media, the review of An Garda Síochána currently under way under the chairmanship of John Horgan will be completed in December. It is not true to say that the findings of that review will not feed into the public pay commission. Of course they will.

Given the nature of the circumstances a Government found itself in a number of years ago, it has made significant progress in dealing with the many problems and frustrations gardaí experienced on the ground in terms of facilities, conditions, investment in reopening the training college, and the commitment now to increase the number to 15,800 to be trained, with 500 civilians going in as well.

This is far too serious a matter not to have the real focus of Government, and it has that focus. There are three groups involved - the GRA, whose representatives the Minister will meet this week, the AGSI, whose members voted 70% in favour of the agreement just a few weeks ago, and the ASTI.

Many other public sector unions have negotiated and accepted these terms and they are moving on with the country as we come out of a very difficult period of recession. I invite the GRA and the AGSI to sit down with the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality and to work within the constraints that are upon us, taking into account announcements to be made by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform later. The same applies to the ASTI in respect of its dealings with the Minister for Education and Skills.

The Taoiseach will be aware that all public sector unions, not just those that are formally in dispute, are watching very closely what is happening here. Does the Taoiseach agree that what is now required is a whole of public service approach? Striking bilateral deals with any single union is not the way forward and there needs to be a clear pathway to full income recovery and the full unwinding of the financial emergency measures in the public interest, FEMPI, in an orderly and affordable way. People do not see this happening, though, and I have not heard anything from the Taoiseach to give me any comfort. The establishment of a pay commission, to report next summer, is not going to sort out the real pressures that are bound to mount, not diminish, in the coming weeks and months. Will the Taoiseach recognise that there is now a need to begin negotiations for a successor agreement to the Lansdowne Road agreement? Will his Government embark on that with all trade unions in order that every public servant will feel included in the pathway to full income recovery?

A number of trade unions had particular difficulties with the existing Lansdowne Road agreement, including the TUI, the INTO and some of the nursing fraternity. The agreements were reached and the progress which has been made is fairly significant but others still have difficulties. I accept that there has to be a successor to the Lansdowne Road agreement. One of the terms of reference of the public pay commission will involve inputs into how the unwinding of the financial emergency provisions Act should proceed. These matters are a genuine focus of Government and nobody wants a situation in which gardaí are not on the streets doing their public duty, as they have always done. I urge them to accept the invitation from the Tánaiste and take into account the decision of Cabinet this morning for a public pay commission. The Horgan report will also deal with the roadmap which is necessary for unions to be able to avail of the statutory machinery of the State, such as the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and the Labour Court.

As was mentioned and as the whole country knows, teachers and gardaí have felt forced to embark on a significant campaign of industrial action over the next few weeks in pursuit of fairness in respect of pay. There will also be mass meetings of nurses over the coming couple of weeks to discuss pay issues. One of the several things at the heart of this looming industrial action is the anger and frustration felt by teachers, gardaí and, increasingly, by nurses over the issue of equality of pay. The call was clearly articulated last Thursday by the ASTI, in a demonstration in which I participated outside the gates of this House, when young and older teachers stood together demanding equal pay for equal work. It is a basic and simple principle.

I was struck by the sight of newly qualified and new entrant teachers explaining how angry and frustrated they were after coming out of college, getting their qualifications, in some cases at very high levels, and getting paid €6,000, €7,000 or €8,000 less than a teacher with the same qualifications working in the same school just because they had entered service after 2011. Will the Taoiseach accept that such inequality in pay is unacceptable and that it breaches the most fundamental principle of treating people equally?

In the 1970s, we got equal pay for women, which did not exist previously, and nobody would dare to suggest we should have anything less than equal pay for men and women. We have equality legislation which outlaws discrimination against people on pretty much any basis. Is it not in line with the fundamental principle of equality that teachers, nurses and gardaí should get the same pay for doing the same work? Will the Taoiseach commit to re-establishing that equality and ending the pay apartheid which is one of the burning issues angering teachers, nurses and gardaí and which is forcing many young people who might go into those professions to leave this country because the Taoiseach continues to allow that discrimination against them?

The previous Government once removed made a decision not to pay young graduate nurses particular increments and it is only now that the Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, has been able to deal with that and approve those.

Deputy Boyd Barrett makes the point about teachers. This is obviously a matter of serious concern for teachers. It was of such serious concern to and members of the TUI and the INTO that they sat down with the Minister for Education and Skills under the existing arrangements, and a new deal for new entrant teachers was implemented for the INTO and for the TUI. That deal is on offer also to the ASTI. That means that the starting pay for new entrant members will increase by 15% between 31 August this year and 1 January 2018, that is, from €31,009 to €35,602. It also means that an individual member recruited since 1 September 2015 will see a 22% increase in his or her pay between 31 August 2016 and 1 January 2018, that is, from €31,009 to €37,723. That agreement will be implemented in two phases, in January 2017 and January 2018, respectively. It results in an increase of up to €2,000 per year for new teachers at the start of their careers and an overall earnings increase over the course of that career of approximately €135,000.

That agreement will apply to members of the teachers' unions which have signed up to the Lansdowne Road agreement, that is, the TUI and the INTO, and cannot apply to ASTI as matters stand but will if it decides to do business with the Minister.

Just because the Government chose not to.

Following the announcement, the Minister wrote to the ASTI to inform it that he is quite willing to conclude a similar agreement with it within the framework of the Lansdowne Road agreement. The ASTI, as Deputy Boyd Barrett will be aware, is now the only trade union within the education and training sector to have rejected the Lansdowne Road agreement.

These are very substantial figures on the table and agreed with two major unions, the INTO and the TUI. I again ask the ASTI to engage with the Minister, Deputy Bruton, who has been in the position to bring about an arrangement under the Lansdowne Road agreement for the two other major unions and which is now being implemented.

What about the qualification allowance?

The only groups of workers who have balloted on this issue are the ASTI and the Garda representative unions.

The Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland, ASTI, and the gardaí have democratically made a decision and, I suspect, if it was put to the rank and file of the Teachers Union of Ireland, TUI, the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, INTO, and to the nurses, we might have a different response. The young teachers at that rally were not political or radical people. There were just young teachers and they have thought about this deeply. They do not want to be on strike but they are raging about the question of inequality. The Taoiseach referenced figures of increases, with which I am well familiar, but they are not equality. That is the point. It was clear from those young teachers that they want equality. I asked the Taoiseach if he accepted that this pay inequality, pay apartheid and discrimination against young people coming into this profession simply because they happen to come into it after 2011 is unacceptable and if he accepted that it must be done away with. That is what they believe. It is pay apartheid. The scale of it is such that even with the increases the Taoiseach's is proposing, teachers who came into the profession after 2011 will earn about €160,000 less over their lifetimes. That is a very significant chunk of what it would cost to put a roof over their heads over the course of their lifetimes, even with the Taoiseach's proposed changes. Will he commit to equality? That is the question. Will he acknowledge that the teachers, the gardaí and any other group who choose to fight for equality and, if necessary, take industrial action to achieve it are right to pursue the principle of equality?

The INTO balloted to stay within the Lansdowne Road agreement. The figures I read out to the Deputy are very substantial. We have had debates here in the last period about the minimum wage, low paid workers, a reduction in the universal social charge and the abolition of income tax for those who are very low paid. These figures for young teachers starting off in their careers are quite substantial, up to €35,000 by 1 January 2018. These figures have been negotiated within the range of the Lansdowne Road agreement in respect of which the INTO balloted to stay. Obviously, if it has been successful for two major teacher unions and an agreement has been reached-----

They were not balloted.

The Deputy will appreciate that the State does not have an endless pool of money for everybody and that is why the Haddington Road agreement-----

I am asking about equality. Just answer the question.

-----was introduced. That is why the Lansdowne Road agreement has been brought in as a successor and why we will have to have another successor after that. These are issues that can be dealt with by political decisions, but they require people to sit down and talk about the role and the strategy to bring that to fruition. Here is evidence of substantial numbers of teachers at primary and secondary level having agreed a timetable-----

They were not balloted.

-----with the Minister for Education and Skills. I hope the same can apply in the case of An Garda Síochána, the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, AGSI, and the Garda Representative Association, GRA.

What about the ASTI?

That concludes Leaders' Questions. We will move on to the Order of Business. I call Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh who will be acting as rapporteur of the Business Committee to announce the business for the week and to move the proposal regarding arrangements for the taking of business.