Top public servants, earning above €150,000 per annum, will see their pay restored following cuts under Financial Emergency (FEMPI) legislation which was introduced after the 2008 crash.

Those on a salary of under €150,000 have already seen their pay restored to pre-austerity levels.

CEOs of State bodies, certain members of the judiciary and senior civil servants are all in line to see an increase in their salary come July 1st.

Roughly 4,000 public servant workers will see a bump in their pay package, ranging from 1.4% to 10%, with 90% of those workers understood to be medical consultants.

The total cost for the pay restoration will cost the Government €30m until the end of the year.

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Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said the Government had looked at options to delay restoring the pay.

"We had a look at our options because we knew this would be controversial and we knew it wasn't coming at the best of times, although there never is a good time to do these things.

"The options were passing a new law to further delay pay restoration for this group of people, and the advice was very clear, that legislation that was used to cut the pay of public servants was a financial emergency provision, there is no longer a financial emergency, we have record levels of employment, public finances are in good order and we would have to go into court and make the argument that it was right to fully revert the pay cuts for a school principal or somebody working in the passport office or a Garda inspector, but it was ok to single out doctors."

"If we were to bring in a law to single out this group, 90% of whom are consultants, we would have to be able to justify singling out that group."

In 2017 legislation was passed by the Oireachtas, supported by government parties, along with Sinn Fein and the Labour party, which allowed for the completion of the restoration of pay for those earning over €150,000 to come into effect no later than July 1 2022.