Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

Ba mhaith liom mo buíochas a gabháil leis an Ceann Comhairle agus leis an Teachta Burton. Sinn Féin fully supports legislation to end payments of ministerial pensions to representatives who are sitting in the Houses of the Oireachtas. However, this issue is deeper and wider than it has been conveyed. The pensions issue is merely the tip of the iceberg in a State in which who one knows still is more important than what one knows and can be of great financial benefit. There are people in receipt of ministerial and Deputies' pensions who are serving on State boards at present, which is a matter on which I wish to reflect. The issue of multiple pensions also has not been dealt with. Sinn Féin firmly believes that pensions should be paid to retired Oireachtas Members who should be in receipt of a single adequate pension.

Sinn Féin also contests that the wider issue of State pension provision must be dealt with more satisfactorily than has been the case to date. This State still awards billions each year in private pension tax reliefs while continuing to allow tax-free lump sums to be withdrawn on receipt of the pension. While some changes have been made, no one can deny that the State has lost billions in revenue because of its pensions arrangements for the wealthy in Irish society over the past few decades. Sinn Féin also has an issue with the State's proposals to force people to invest in the private pension industry, which has performed dismally in recent years and may be likely to so do again. However, these are issues for another day.

Today, as I indicated, I wish to deal with the issue of State pensions for former Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas. The issue of ministerial and Deputies' pensions extends both to Members sitting in the Chamber tonight and to former politicians who have been appointed by the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, as public interest directors in banks. Their finances were set out recently and make for interesting reading. I refer to the first and most notable of them, namely, the former Fine Gael leader Alan Dukes. He receives €99,000 as a Government-appointed member of the board of Anglo Irish Bank and benefits from a combined ministerial and Deputy's pension of €99,470. Former Labour Party leader and Tánaiste, Dick Spring, receives a ministerial pension of €77,000, as well as a Deputy's pension of €52,213, which is a combined total of almost €130,000. This is in addition to his basic salary of €27,375 and €3,000 for every committee meeting he attends as public interest director at the partly State-owned AIB. The former Minister for Agriculture and Food and Fianna Fáil Deputy, Joe Walsh, is paid €78,750 as a State-appointed non-executive director at Bank of Ireland and receives a ministerial and a Deputy's pension worth €127,000 in total. In addition, the former European Commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, receives a ministerial pension of €74,746 and a Deputy's pension of €52,000. When added to his European Commission pension of €51,000, Mr. McCreevy's total pension package is worth €178,000 per year. He also receives a step-down payment following his departure from Brussels that is worth a staggering €537,000 over the next three years. The former Fianna Fáil MEP Eoin Ryan receives a ministerial pension of €5,909 and a Deputy's pension of €50,000. This is in addition to the €131,000 salary he earns as the Government-appointed Irish representative on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The outrageous point about this entire affair is that not one of those who came forward regarding their pension payments in recent weeks did so willingly, despite their attempts to salvage some kind of public relations image of which further examples have been seen this evening. One should be in no mistake but that this State has been in recession for some years. The bill for Oireachtas pensions amounts to approximately €12 million per annum. There are Members of the Dáil who received hundreds of thousands of euro in salaries last year and who did not do a single thing to address their own heavy charge on the public finances while defending decisions to take money from the most vulnerable in our society.

This issue goes to the heart of everything that is wrong in this society. The crisis in the public finances did not arise in a vacuum. Even during the decades of the alleged boom, sectors of society within this State were left abandoned. In years of surplus, we still had a two-tier and wholly inadequate health service, as well an underfunded education system. Sinn Féin still is the only party whose elected representatives take home only the average industrial wage and put the balance of their salaries and expenses into services for their constituents and campaigning work for their party. Others in this Chamber were happy to pocket pay rises when the going was good and after things turned bad, they only acted when the public and the media shamed them into so doing.

The heart of this recession does not lie with the social welfare pay bill, the spending in the health system or the minimum wage, which are issues that some voices from the Government side would try to impress on one. It lies with Government failure to properly manage the economy. When the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, and the Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen, now preach about all of us being obliged to tighten our belts, I wonder who they are trying to convince. Is it the bankers and senior management in the private sector whose own personal excesses created wages bills for their businesses that now are clearly unsustainable? Such calls were not directed at any such people but at those who lived last year on social welfare payments of €204 per week, before the Ministers saw fit to reduce the amount to €196 a week this year. It is directed at those who are earning €8.65 per hour and who must learn to live on less because the Government and narrowly-focused big business leaders believe that the only way in which to build competitiveness is through slashing the wages bill and removing essential social supports, rather then through infrastructural development, universal broadband provision or a reduction in rents.

The pensions issue placed a microscope on the very worst excesses of the men and women in this Chamber and their predecessors. However, anyone can take a step back and see how broad is this problem. It certainly is not confined to what Members have been addressing or which has been the focus of media attention recently. There are still circles of people in this society, all of whom are interconnected because ultimately this is such a small place, which protect themselves no matter what. They will emerge from this recession barely affected, as has been the case historically. Occasionally, the media will raise an issue such as this one that brings to bear so much pressure on such circles that they are forced to take action to assuage public anger. However, it is not enough and another head always grows on this monster. People are disillusioned with politics in this State not because of this sole issue but because of the litany of incompetence and mé féinism that has pervaded the politics of this State over the decades.

What is required is a new beginning to politics both in this State and across this island. The old politics of cronyism, greed and partitionism must be discarded. I am glad to support the motion tabled by Fine Gael this evening although it constitutes only one small step. Accordingly, my final call in this debate is on the Minister of State to ensure that his Fianna Fáil colleagues accept the proposition put forward, accept the common sense and do not seek to hide behind a notion that they are not prepared to impose a new regime or to imply that it is in some way unconstitutional. None of those aprons behind which voices from the Government side have sought to hide in recent days adequately covers their shame. The Fine Gael motion before the House this evening, supported by the collective voices of the Opposition, is the essential step that must now be taken.

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