Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am referring to remarks made earlier that were unchallenged. I believe I have a right of reply.

I do not know of any other country in the world, with the possible exception of North Korea, where people turn up when they feel like it and draw money from it, yet do not participate in any meaningful way. To be honest, it smacks of hypocrisy to talk here about the cost of governance, the cost of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission and of everything else while at the same time there are five Members of the Westminster Parliament in receipt of €697,000 from Her Majesty's treasury and there is not a gig from them. By the same token, if Members of the House consider themselves overpaid, there is nothing preventing them from going to the Paymaster General and asking for their pay to be reduced. However, I have not heard any Member from Sinn Féin or any other Member offering to do that.

Earlier contributors to the debate referred to the cost of running political parties as opposed to the cost of being an Independent. The electorate expects political parties to run the country. It does not expect it to be possible to cobble together a government from a group of Independents because it probably would not last very long. By virtue of the fact that there is a Standards in Public Office Commission, regulations regarding fund-raising and maximum limits for donations, the cost of running political parties is quite high. It is expensive because of the demands made of all of us as politicians. As a result, the leader's allowance for political parties is different from the leader's allowance for Independents.

As I said in the House on several occasions before the budget, it is immoral that there are Members of this House in receipt of a leader's allowance without producing a single receipt. It is essentially an extra payment of €43,000 into the Member's pocket. I am glad the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has made an effort to try to address that, but more must be done. It is an oxymoron. One cannot be a leader of oneself. One is either an Independent or a member of a political party. If the Technical Group is going to vote, speak, kick out members, hold parliamentary party meetings and elect leaders as a party, that means it is a political party. It is a farce at present. On the one hand, people are pretending they are Independents, but on the other, they are behaving as a political party by kicking out people and bringing them in as they see fit, setting rules, holding meetings and appointing whips. It flies in the face of what it means to be an Independent.

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