Debate contribution: Public-sector Pay
Debate contribution by Mr John O'Dowd on .
- MLA
- Mr John O'Dowd
- Party at the time
- Sinn Féin
- Date
- 12 October 2026
- Type
- Debate contribution (made as a minister)
- Business
- Oral Answers to Questions
- Heading
- Public-sector Pay
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5786097
Read the official Assembly record
Text
We would not have public services without public-sector workers to deliver them. I recognise that it is essential that our public-sector workers be appropriately rewarded. That is why my priority is to secure a mechanism to enable delivery of public-sector pay awards. In normal circumstances, public-sector pay policy sets the overall parameters and principles for pay awards and provides a framework for that. The absence, however, of an agreed Executive Budget has meant that the public-sector pay policy has not yet been set for 2026-27. Any pay award must be affordable within agreed departmental spending limits. At present, as I said, Departments do not have the benefit of an agreed Executive Budget within which to plan or operate. The Executive remain ready to engage urgently and constructively with the Government to secure sufficient support for the current financial year, a credible pathway to having sustainable public finances and a pathway to securing pay uplifts for public-sector workers.
157 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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