Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The people on the ground are sick and tired of the way we are behaving. Ministers of State have programme managers and assistants. They have six or seven secretaries in their offices doing constituency work. The Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, knows it is not right. We cannot afford it any longer. We need to do something about it. We should lead by example. We should send a message to the people of this country to the effect that we are serious about our business. We know there are problems out there. People are suffering. The Members of this House should agree to do our business in a different way.

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