Fact Check: No, Ministers Did Not Give Themselves a Special Pay Rise

Claim: “Government ministers awarded themselves a special increase of €1,700 in salary this year"

Verdict: False. Claims that ministers awarded themselves larger pay rises are incorrect. The 2026 adjustments are part of the nationwide collective agreement, and in many cases, ordinary government employees received higher increases than Cabinet members.

Several statements have been made claiming that ministers’ base salaries will rise by €1,700 in 2026, while ordinary public sector workers only get the €242.32 COLA adjustment. This claim is incorrect on multiple fronts.

The increase in salaries shown in the 2026 estimates stems from the Public Service Collective Agreement, which applies to all employees paid from public funds, including the Prime Minister, Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries, Opposition MPs, and even the judiciary.

This means the salary adjustments were not discretionary political decisions, but part of a standardised pay revision under the national collective agreement.

The Actual Figures behind the Ministry Salaries

According to the official 2026 estimates:

Position	2025	2026	Increase (€)
Prime Minister	€63,906	€64,866	+960
Ministers	€56,238	€57,082	+845
Parliamentary Secretary	€53,681	€54,488	+806
Leader of Opposition	€51,125	€51,893	+768
Member of Parliament	€25,563	€25,947	+384

For comparison, the average increase for public service grades was:

Scale	2025	2026	Increase (€)
Scale 2	€47,922	€48,897	+975
Scale 3	€44,723	€45,904	+1,181
Scale 4	€41,530	€42,916	+1,386
Scale 6	€35,857	€37,509	+1,652
Scale 7	€33,694	€35,345	+1,651

So in reality, a Scale 7 public servant, a mid-tier administrative grade, saw a bigger pay rise (€1,651) than the Prime Minister (€960).

The increases already include the 2026 Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) of €242.32 (€4.66 per week × 52 weeks). Any claim that “COLA is separate” is false. The figures published in the government’s estimates explicitly include COLA.