TDs will get to keep the €5,400 pay restoration increments they are due in the unwinding of emergency financial legislation unless they voluntarily forgo the repayment.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe said "it is vital we adhere to the principle that politicians do not set other politicians' pay".

He said, however, “it remains open to members of the Oireachtas to forgo the restoration of the pay reduction”.

Sinn Féin public expenditure and reform spokesman David Cullinane said his party would introduce a Private Members' motion to halt the increment for TDs, which he said was unfair. However, the Minister asked him if he would sign a waiver to forgo the increment back to the exchequer

Mr Donohoe had asked what Sinn Féin’s policy was. Mr Cullinane said he took the average industrial wage. “I have taken somebody off the live register and I pay them €300 a week, which comes out of my salary.”

Economic crash

Public servants earning €80,000-€150,000 had their salary reduced by 8 per cent, or €5,400, after the economic crash.

Under the terms negotiated in the Haddington Road and Lansdowne Road agreements, they will begin to get their pay restored next year.

The Cabinet agreed to forgo increments of €3,900 for each of the next three years. Mr Donohoe said the decision was made “precisely in recognition of the challenges our country still faces”.

They are currently paid €157,540 while TDs are due to recover €2,700 from April 1st and a similar amount in 2018 to bring them back to €92,658.

Mr Cullinane criticised the pay restoration, which he said was worth more than €100 a week. “I do not believe that is justified,” he said.

The Waterford TD said people on salaries below €65,000 were not seeing pay restoration and that was why they were threatening strike action.

Mr Donohoe said an independent review body in 2000 pegged TDs’ salary with that of civil service principal officers.