Dáil debates

Wednesday, 6 April 2016

6:25 pm

Photo of Bríd SmithBríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We should see those minutes and know what decisions have been taken.

I again wish to raise the issue of our salaries. It is ridiculous that we are on these high salaries, some more than others, and entitled to these very lucrative pensions, which are paid out on a very different basis from how an ordinary worker receives his or her pension. We must consider reforming the salaries of Deputies and Ministers, and also their pensions and how they are paid. We have no right to bang on about the Luas drivers’ strike, a Tesco strike or a nurses’ strike when we cannot look at ourselves in an honest way and say that we are being overpaid and are over-privileged here.

Secrecy is a real problem. The idea that one can ask a question as an elected representative and not get a proper answer in the interest of protecting commercial interests must go. If someone asks a question of the Cabinet, as I will do in the near future, about how Transdev receives profits from running the Luas, I will be told it is an issue of commercial secrecy. It should not be a commercial secret; it should be open to the people of Ireland to know how that works. Likewise, it should be open to the people of Ireland to know how public-private partnerships work and how secret commercial deals are kept quiet. Furthermore, the use of consultancy firms such as PCW or PwC, or whichever way the initials go, is outrageous. They are overpaid and over-bloated. They are used to do consultancy work for Irish Water and every other goddamn thing that happens while our universities are loaded with well trained, publicly educated academics and experts in various fields. We have public bodies that could equally carry out such research on behalf of the Dáil. We must start examining things like that instead of taking on advisers who have vested interests in the neoliberal agenda.

My final point relates to something that irks most of the population. If a Deputy runs on a promise relating to a certain issue, he or she will not always achieve what he or she set out to implement. However, I am talking about those who promise not to vote for water charges or an increase in university fees and then do vote for them. There should be some mechanism of recall for Deputies who break promises in their manifestoes, which the public believed and on the basis of which they voted for them.

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