Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

The story we are consistently told by those who defend excessive pay is that in order to get the quality personnel, be they political advisers, senior civil servants or others in the public sector, we must pay excessive salaries. The recent past demonstrates the folly of that argument. If we were to do a value for money audit of all those who are in very senior positions in the political sphere and in the public and Civil Service and honestly asked ourselves if they delivered for the State, I think in many cases, in spite of their very high pay, the answer to that question would be a categorical "No".

We are in crisis and the Minister's own speech sets it out in graphic terms. We either have a crisis or we do not. We either set about making the kinds of political choices that will remedy the situation or we do not. We either reclaim for the political and public systems of this State the credibility, moral authority and confidence of the citizens, or we do not. Measures such as this, which propose excessive salaries for the Judiciary, the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and for the Minister do a grave disservice to the standing of politics. In the starkest terms, we are witnessing the "haves" and the "have nots", the insiders and the outsiders. As people speculate about the budget this evening and worry about how they will get by, let me say that their hearts will not be lightened, or their burden lessened at the prospect of some high flyer who will have to take a minor hit on an excessive pension.

The Minister has failed in the task of addressing this issue. He has consistently failed on the matter of runaway pay at the upper echelons of the public and Civil Service. As the Minister charged with reform and as the Minister who has been party to and will deal further blows to middle and lower ranking civil and public servants, in bringing forward this Bill and in failing to deal with the large pension pots, he has blown his credibility and his standing-----

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