Niall Collins (Limerick West, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Acting Chairman. I propose to share time with Deputy Mattie McGrath.

There is a great deal of merit in both the Labour Party's motion and the Government's amendment to it. I wish to refer to the part of the amendment which relates to public servants. We must introduce legislation to ensure that there is a complete prohibition on those who retire from the Civil Service or the public service from taking up alternative or new positions in either. At at time when 450,000 people are unemployed, it is simply not acceptable that a person can be in receipt of a very good pension in respect of one State employment while working in another position which could be occupied by someone who is young and qualified. There has been a great deal of this type of thing in the area of education. The Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills has raised the matter with the boards of management of schools, which, ultimately, are the employers of teachers.

There will also be a need to take action in respect of the State Examinations Commission. It has been brought to my attention that many former or retired teachers are obtaining employment in the area of examination supervision and that they receive remuneration for doing so. This is happening at the expense of younger teachers who have mortgages to pay and young families for which they are obliged to provide. I am glad that anyone who avails of the redundancy package on offer from the HSE at present will not be permitted to take up employment elsewhere in the wider public service.

On the comments about extending the Freedom of Information Act to include the Garda Síochána, like Deputy Byrne said we need to flesh that out a little bit further and we have to get the balance right because the flipside is that unfortunately in Ireland malicious and false complaints are sometimes made about individuals. The Garda Síochána has a duty to investigate these but unfortunately the people who are the subject of these complaints never get to see them which is quite distressing for them. A balance needs to be struck.

On Dáil reform, we have to note that in the 12 months to July of this year the Houses of the Oireachtas communications unit placed on the public record the fact that the Dáil and committee system sat for a total of 210 or 220 days which is a significant amount of work. We have to balance that with an informed debate about Dáil reform. We have to be available to meet the public when we are outside the Chamber and the complex of the Houses of the Oireachtas. Meeting community groups, people and interest groups who inform us on our legislation is part of our work.

We cannot lock ourselves away inside the House and pretend to know it all. We also have to get out and mix with people. Part of Dáil reform will also have to involve reform of politicians and our behaviour in the Chamber because often what we see in here is populist grandstanding and it does not serve the people who elected us.

See this speech in context