Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yes, so it was Deputy Quinn. At that time there was a valid recognition that the Government has the support of the public service, special advisers, press office, research office and so forth and that it was not fair that its parties should get the full amount of the party leader's allowance, which will in future be called the parliamentary activities allowance. The legislation provides that the allowance paid to parties in Government be reduced by one third in respect of each of their members. The mechanics of it mean that the Government parties get whatever their allowance would be under the first line of computation and it is reduced by one third. I propose that it be reduced by a half. The number of people taken on by Governments in recent decades in terms of special advisers, press officers, ministerial advisers and so forth means that the amount of support available to a Minister has increased substantially. That should be recognised here by providing for a greater reduction of the allowance for the Government parties. The reduction should be a half instead of one third.

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