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

People elected the Taoiseach, Deputies, including me, and Ministers to this House. Of course, Ministers, Taoisigh and Cabinet members have significant additional responsibilities but they also have a huge number of public servants and civil servants around them. To have on top of this an extensive layer of multiple highly-paid advisers raises questions in ordinary people's minds, particularly at a time when hundreds of thousands of people are on their knees economically and financially, having lost their jobs and had their pandemic unemployment payments cut. We then have this extensive layer of multiple advisers, who some might say do not seem to be giving great advice at present. If we take the Tánaiste's outbursts at the public health team, one wonders whether it was a result of very expensive advice. It is just jobs for the boys and largesse for those who get the prize of power, which is being paid for by the public and really is doing nothing for ordinary people. That is the perception out there. Does the Taoiseach not recognise that this is the case?

Frankly, even from the Taoiseach's point of view, these advisers often do more to confuse than assist in the business of government. The Taoiseach might do better to listen to members of the public and ordinary people outside the bubble of Leinster House advisers and Ministers, rather than paying extortionate salaries to a bloated layer of advisers.

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