#vinb post-show blog 11 April: Overpaid public servants?

Below, Vincent Browne responds to some of your tweets about tonight's show.

Yes some people in the public service are overpaid. 

The following may be of interest to those who think all public servants are overpaid:

To ask the Minister for  Public Expenditure and Reform the numbers of public sector workers earning less than 20,000, 30,000, 40,000, 50,000, 60,000, 70,000, 80,000, 90,000 and 100,000 euro per annum and earning more than 100,000 per annum in tabular form.

- Mary Lou McDonald.

*    For WRITTEN answer on Tuesday, 25th October, 2011.

To ask the Minister for  Public Expenditure and Reform the number of public servants earning more than 100,000, 120,000, 150,000, 200,000, 250,000, 300,000, 350,000, 400,000, 450,000 and 500,000 euro per annum and if he will provide the information in tabular form.

- Mary Lou McDonald. 

*    For WRITTEN answer on Tuesday, 25th October, 2011. 

Ref No: 30748/11

REPLY

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform ( Mr Howlin) :

I propose to take Questions Nos. ….. and …… together.

I am informed by the Revenue Commissioners that the latest relevant sector-based information available on employees taxed under the PAYE system is derived from income tax returns filed for the income tax year 2009 and represents about 96 per cent of all returns expected at the time the data were compiled for analytical purposes. The figures include PAYE taxpayers who are required to return an income tax return Form 11 where non-PAYE income is greater than €3,174, and do not segregate earnings from public sources and those from other sources. Therefore, the earnings figures shown may include income from non public-sector sources.

The data also includes various forms of income from public sources to groups that would not normally be regarded as being employed within the public service, e.g. those receiving fees, those on State Boards etc. On the basis of the available tax-based data it is not possible to identify and exclude income from public sources to groups that would not normally be regarded as employed within the public service or to distinguish the earnings of employees associated with atypical work patterns. Accordingly, it is likely that the number of lower paid public servants is overstated. On this basis the total numbers of public sector employees, and the breakdown of those numbers by income ranges, is set out as follows. {jathumbnailoff}