Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am disgusted at what is going on here today. I am newly elected to this House. Bringing forward this measure on Wednesday at 11 p.m. and pushing it through is the most devious thing I have witnessed to date. This Government talks about 22 million trees per year to tackle climate change. I am not quite sure how it proposes to do that but what I know for certain is that the money tree has landed firmly in the circle of greed between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party. It is appalling, as others have said. The only excuse offered is that pay must be regularised. I agree it must be regularised but why not by reducing the salaries of the other two junior Ministers?

We have discussed front-line workers and care assistants. The care assistants who are on the minimum - some of them not in receipt of it - are the people who sat by the beds of people who were dying without any personal protective equipment, PPE, because we could not afford to give it to them. We could not afford to provide them with the PPE they were begging for. They are the same people who went home crying every night because we could not afford it. We sit here now and say that a salary of more than €2,000 per week is not enough. If it is not enough for politicians, there are others for whom it would be adequate. We tell the families applying to SUSI for grants that because they are €5 over the eligibility criteria, we have nothing for them and then Government does what it is doing here today. It is disgusting. Everybody who votes for this measure should be ashamed of himself or herself.

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