Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am conscious I do not have time to move on to the Civil service allowance issues and I might return to those later in the meeting. I will finish by giving a view on this to the Minister's Department in particular. The era of unvouched expenses has to end and that is an absolute necessity. The scale of the allowances being paid must be revisited with an eye to cost reduction. Certainly, additional payments for duties such as the chairmanship of a committee or taking on the duties of Whip in the current climate simply must be abolished. In saying this, I am conscious that the Department has made some progress and that savings that could be made in this Oireachtas will not be the be-all and end-all in terms of our economic fortunes but, none the less, it is important that, first, we are efficient and, second, as a matter of public confidence, taxpayers are assured that every effort has been made to modify and to save, and we start with ourselves when we look for cost savings.