The government today approved a 2% pay rise for judges in line with public sector pay agreements.
It also approved larger allowances for party whips including a €9,000 rise in the allowance for the Sinn Féin party whip.
Padraig Mac Lochlainn has said he won't take that rise.
The government has been criticised for doing all this while rejecting a motion to pay student nurses - which Taoiseach Micheál Martin says is overly simplistic:
"This debate in my view has been very politicised. It's been very guilty of short termism. And it's been designed to put one group of politicians into one corner, and another in the other corner via a motion, a simplistic motion that seeks to resolve public service pay, and the critical issue of how best to educate medical students."
