Yesterday the Government signed off on an obscene €81,000 pay increase for a top civil servant which will see the incoming Secretary General in the Department of Health earning €292,000 a year, or ten times the salary of a nurse starting out on the front line fighting Covid. There was no process or rationale for this obscene pay hike. At the time the Government said it was necessary in order to attract the best and the brightest to apply for the post. Lo and behold, the best and brightest were there all along under its nose. This is a stroke, a try on and a kick in the teeth to workers right across the public and private sectors. The incoming Secretary General has now said he will temporarily waive the €81,000 pay hike, but the truth is that it should not be waived; it should be cancelled. This pay hike is obscenely wrong. I challenge the Taoiseach to withdraw it, and to do so immediately.

The selection of a person to fill the post of Secretary General in the Department of Health was an independent process, the Top-Level Appointments Committee, TLAC, process. It was open to international competition for anybody to apply, and quite a number of people applied. The person selected is experienced and has served in various capacities within the public service. He would be regarded as a senior experienced public servant. It was an independent selection process. Deputy McDonald should not cast aspersions on the individual implicitly, as she has done in the presentation she has made.

In respect of the health service more generally and other areas, salary increases have occurred. There was a view that we wanted to create a new situation in terms of An Garda Síochána, the HSE and health. We are determined to make a change in health that will be of a transformative kind in terms of our health service, not just for now but into the future at all levels of our health services, because that is required.