Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The Minister does not seem to get the point. I was on the picket line with Debenhams workers the other day. They were sickened at the thought that people in this House were going to get a pay increase when their pandemic unemployment payments were going to be cut by those very people. Does the Minister understand why they would be sickened about a situation where they have been abandoned, where the Government has let them down and where people who have worked for decades have just been dumped on the scrapheap? The Government sits by and gives them tea and sympathy but does nothing to help them, and they are literally dumped by a ruthless company and a Government that washes its hands of their fate. Then, they see that politicians are giving themselves a pay rise. Does the Minister not get how angry that would make them? I can tell him it was not me prompting them. When I hear that kind of stuff, I think we have to respond to that and we have to say it is not just a matter of individual choice. Fair play to the Minister for making that choice, and we have made that choice that we will not take the pay increase, but, against that background, I do not believe any politician in this House should receive an increase in respect of an already high salary.

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