Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)

I get worried for this country when I listen to what some of the Members on the other side of the House have to say in these debates. I do not know what planet they are on. To come in here like some of our colleagues and make big speeches stating that this debate is unnecessary and that there is nothing wrong with having these pensions shows they are completely off the wall and are not in touch with what is going on. We are living in a different Ireland to the one we lived in five or six years ago. Apart from that, it was never right that a sitting Deputy would also draw a ministerial pension - it should never have been introduced. It is not just because Ireland has changed or that we are in tough times that we are doing this. It was wrong in itself, even whiile I accept that Deputies of all parties went along with it.

We now have a chance to fix it. I raised this issue a couple of years ago but no one wanted to hear anything about it, not even the media. This also applied to many other areas where money was being wasted - nobody wanted to talk about them three or four years ago. Thankfully, while there are mostly bad points about these recessionary times, one good point is that there is a chance to correct how we spend money, where we spent it wrongly, and to put it right once and for all. For years, my backbench colleagues and I highlighted many of these areas where money was being spent wrongly. Taxpayers' money was being wasted and not spent in the proper spirit of law or government.

Deputy Seán Power stated that Deputy Kenny does not know what the country needs or wants. I put it to him - I note he has left the Chamber - that what the country does not need or want is Members of this House receiving a second wage in the form of a pension. This is wrong on either front. I say to those who have taken pot-shots at Deputy Kenny in regard to the tabling of this motion that Deputy Kenny did not have to introduce legislation to ensure members of the Fine Gael Party gave back their pensions. He did not have to do so because he is a leader and members of the Fine Gael Party listened to him, took his advice and took action, which is what should happen in other parties. There is something wrong when the Taoiseach, Deputy Cowen, did not have the power to convince his own colleagues to give up their unnecessary pensions, which are a second wage. I believe the Taoiseach knows his days are numbered given he could not even deal with that simple issue.

Fine Gael did not wish to waste three hours discussing this issue. There are plenty of other issues we want to discuss, including the situation in Greece, Europe and in Ireland in terms of our finances, the Quinn Group jobs and many other issues such as the number of people in all of our constituencies who are losing their jobs. There are many other issues than this with which we want to deal.

We do not like having to deal with this issue in this way. Deputy Kenny raised it last year and asked the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance to deal with it. He told them if they did not we would find a way to do so. Deputy Kenny again raised the issue a few weeks ago but the Government continued to refuse to act. He again asked last week that the Government do something about it but no action whatever has been taken. Deputy Kenny then, thankfully, found a way, which we believe is legally correct, to do this. That is the reason we are having this debate.

This debate is necessary because the people need to know this House is willing to take action to correct what it has done wrong in the past. The people need leadership. Members and Ministers who cannot get their affairs in order cannot expect anybody else to accept cuts in wages or to deal with hardship. One needs to lead from the front and this should start in this House. This is the reason we are having this debate. It is a matter of principle. I heard on local radio yesterday it being stated that there were only three Members remaining who did not give up their pensions and that only €20,000 or €30,000 each was involved, which is not a big deal. It is a big deal. The principle is what is important. The message must go out that this House knows it must change the way in which it does its business. This debate is one small step towards correcting what is and has always been wrong.

There are many other issues which the House needs to address. I have been a Member for almost eight years. I am fed up being told every morning that if I am not happy with the rules I should seek to have them changed. We, on this side of the House, cannot change them. We do not have enough Members to win a vote and the Ceann Comhairle knows this. The previous and current Ceann Comhairle continue to say this. This must stop. It is only the Government side of the House that can bring about Dáil reform. The Government does not even need our support to introduce change in this regard. We need proper reform.

Deputy Conlon asked what we, as Members of this House, are doing to its reputation. What did Deputy Bertie Ahern and Fianna Fáil in Government do for this House? They ruined the reputation of this Parliament. They made a joke of it. One cannot get answers to parliamentary questions and line Ministers rarely turn up for Adjournment Debates. One cannot raise issues of the day in the House. Approximately one and a half hours every day is wasted on the Order of Business, with Members on all sides raising in a silly manner issues that should be discussed properly. They have no other way of raising these issues, which is a joke. Anybody following the proceedings of this House must see it is a farce, which is what it has become in the past ten or 15 years. There is one party responsible for this.

I long for the day when Parliament will not be run by Government but will be separate. That is how it must be if we are to have a properly functioning democracy with proper oversight, which is what we do not have now. This is the reason the reputations of politicians have become a joke. We are at the bottom of the rung but will move on. This is only part of what is wrong in this House.

The motion before us relates to the claw back of pensions from Ministers and Members of this House. It is easy to start with this. However, it is fundamentally wrong for anybody working in the public sector to also draw a public sector pension. I accept this affects many more people other than politicians. A person who continues in public service employment should not be permitted to also draw a public service pension.

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