Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

There is no doubt about the desirability of dealing with pay levels and allowances in the Oireachtas and having a system that is seen as fair is important. Fine Gael advocated that pensions payable to serving Members of the Oireachtas should be entirely abolished. I received a letter from the Minister indicating that he had received legal advice to say that this could not be done but no such advice was furnished. I then heard that the Minister had decided to cut the pensions by 25% but no legal advice was furnished on why he could cut them by 25% but not 100%. There is considerable confusion about the legal restraint on the Government implementing these changes. The legal advice indicates that a general election provides a threshold at which one can change because people knowingly enter a new contract. That is understandable but I am not clear how legal advice would suggest that 25% is allowable but 100% is not.

Some Members will be adversely affected by this and will look ruefully at how someone who served as a Minister can take up well-paid positions outside the House and continue to enjoy a pension, while those who continue in the House cannot do so. I understand how people see this as unfair but there is a sense of fairness in that one is continuing in the same profession.

The question arises of whether the Minister will apply similar rules throughout the public service. There must be clarity that one cannot draw a pension as a former teacher and continue teaching. There must be a level playing pitch. There is not much point in a system where people in the Oireachtas are paid on a basis that is seen to be fair and objective but not having rules that are consistently applied.

An issue of the pensionability of the long-service increment cut is raised, which the Minister does not appear to have dealt with in his address to the House. It would seem that an individual who retires at the next election will have his or her final salary based on a long-service increment but someone who runs in the next election and retires at the end of the following term will have his or her final pension based on a lower base. The issue raised relates to what is the final salary. There ought to be a level playing pitch for all Members of the Oireachtas and the Minister should not create fish of one and flesh of another.

While I am on this subject, I will ask about the reduction in ministerial pay, which is somewhat akin to the reduction in the long-service increment. Will the pension treatment of Ministers who have given up pay be on the same basis? There is no point in Ministers being able to have their pensions based on the full 100% pay which they did not take for a period while long-term pensionability for Deputies is on a base that is not similarly calculated. The Minister needs to ensure that treatment is equitable for various Members.

This brings me to another subject that I believe is a source of irritation for quite a number of Deputies who are members of parties. Some Deputies who are Independent Members receive what is described as a party leader's allowance, but unlike the party leader's allowance it is not vouched. There is no return of accounts to show that the allowance was used for purposes legitimately related to parliamentary activities. If we are dealing with anomalies, the situation whereby some Independent Deputies have €41,000 available to them each year, which can be built up and used for all types of advertising or election activities, again raises the issue of a level playing pitch. I recognise that Independent Deputies are entitled to access research support and legitimate matters related to their parliamentary duties. However, if we are to have such a system, in a new spirit of realism such moneys should be based on the presentation to an authority, presumably the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO, of the legitimate use to which that money has been put.

With regard to the regulatory powers which the Minister proposes to take to himself on Committee Stage, in principle there is no problem with this reform and most people will welcome it. I am not clear on whether he will implement in regulation decisions taken by the Oireachtas commission or whether he proposes to institute a system of allowances that he intends to implement. I have not seen the text of his amendment. It is in circulation but I have not seen it.

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