Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is vital when discussing the pay bill for the staff of the Oireachtas that we give recognition to the secretarial assistants working in our offices who have been fighting for fair pay since 2017. I will take a minute to talk about my secretarial assistant, Mr. Ken Weldon, who works in my office. Ken manages my office and organises my clinic. He deals with patience, kindness and empathy with every person who calls to, emails or telephones the office. He is the front line of my office and the first point of contact for many of my constituents. There are days when Ken supports people in very distressed situations. He hears dozens of stories daily of people whose lives are being destroyed by the housing crisis, the cost of living or the crisis in children's disability services. I have no doubt there are people like Ken in constituency offices throughout the State, people who turn up every day with empathy and passion and who go above and beyond their job title to support people who are struggling.

We are expecting people to do these jobs, jobs that are difficult both mentally and emotionally and which require skill and in-depth knowledge of numerous Departments and local authority departments, but we are not even paying them the living wage. Ken and all the other SAs are working tirelessly in offices and helping people at the lowest points in their lives. However, when the secretarial assistants and their unions were ready to engage at the Workplace Relations Commission in a meaningful discussion about their poor pay, representatives of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform could not be bothered to turn up. To be clear, we should have a living wage. A living wage is not a massive sum. It is the bare minimum somebody can earn and live on. It is not a luxury wage. It is not like the hundreds of thousands of euro that are paid by the Government to some people, such as the heads of the HSE and aides employed by the Minister and his Government colleagues. It is the bare minimum a person can earn to ensure he or she can pay the bills and the rent and go to bed at night without worrying.

I believe the Government is completely out of touch with ordinary people. It cannot imagine what it is like to live on a living wage, not to mind the people who have to live on a wage that is lower. One need look no further than the Minister, Deputy O'Brien's plans for affordable housing. Like me, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform is a Corkman. The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, believes affordable housing in Cork could be a maximum of €400,000. That is €400,000 for an affordable house. This goes to the heart of why this Government is completely out of touch with ordinary people. If you are on the living wage of €12.90 per hour, that amounts to €26,832 per annum. To afford the Minister's affordable houses in Cork, you would have to be earning €102,857. It is no wonder Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are so reluctant to discuss the living wage. They are out of touch with the reality that ordinary people have to face. Does the Government understand the vast majority of people in the State are not earning €100,000 so they can buy an affordable house? Affordable homes in Dublin will potentially cost more than that.

The secretarial assistants deserve to be treated equally. There are also people who are struggling to buy an affordable house. At the end of the day, surely to God the Minister will personally recognise that the minimum we should pay people is a living wage. I believe that and Sinn Féin believes it. That is why we believe the people who work for us deserve at least that as a minimum.

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