Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Ach an oiread le go leor daoine eile, tá seans ann gurb é seo mo sheans deiridh, cé go mbeidh mé ag caint sa Dáil arís amárach má shuíonn sí. Tá rún istigh agam a thagann faoi Roinn an Aire féin.

I join in the thanks for all the staff in the House here. I will not start listing the different groups of people who have been so helpful over all the years. They have not only been helpful, but have become good friends of all of us and have been so kind to all the visitors we have brought in and so accommodating to everybody. It is something that makes Leinster House a great place to work and somewhere it is always a pleasure to come to. I do not know whether it has ever happened to the Minister, as a TD, that somebody calls or emails requesting he get one of his team to do something, like look at his diary or check something. Did he look to his left and then his right and see that aside from him there are two on the team? What I have noticed in politics is everything has got more complicated. The whole world has got complicated. Bureaucracy has gone mad. Forms are much more difficult. Lots of people are having lots more difficulty interacting with the State. You cannot get anybody on the phone. They come in desperation to people like Deputies to try to sort their problems out and the service they rightly seek should be of a high quality. Some people will say that is not the job of the TD, but I do not know who is meant to do it. My experience was that I learned so much about the flaws in the system, whether it was forms that were badly designed or policies that have a ridiculous result. It is only when you go to the coalface that you see what ordinary people encounter every day in the system. I brought many of the ideas I have learned from doing my constituency work when I had the great opportunity of being a Minister. My last act here was to be rapporteur on a committee that looked at the whole issue of means-testing, which is a huge issue for people in the west and all over the country. Many people are subject to means tests.

It is absolutely vital – and I can say this going out the door – that there is adequate resourcing of Teachtaí Dála. Democracy all over the world is under challenge. There are lots of people who think it is an unnecessary expense. There is a lot of commentary to that effect. Democracy is the bulwark of stability and is incredibly important to where we find ourselves as a nation in terms of the progress we have made and we must be willing to pay for it. Let the people who do not agree stand up and say they do not, but the vast majority of people agree and want the service.

If the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach will indulge me for one more minute, years ago when I was a Minister a lady rang me and was giving out that I had staff in my constituency office. I noticed the call came from Dublin. I let her off for a while and then asked her whether she would have been mad at me if nobody had answered the phone. I said this was my constituency office, whereas she was from Dublin. She said she supposed she would, started laughing and then apologised saying she accepted that. TDs’ offices are public offices that are accessed by people from all over the place and we should be fearless in funding them. The time to do it is after this election. We should ensure every Member has three staff at least. It is not fair to have one staff member on their own in a constituency office. That is a bad practice. We should all have a member of staff up here. I can say that while going out the door because I will never benefit if that comes in, but it is time we faced the work burden of TDs and did something practical about it. That is one small suggestion. There are other reforms I would like to see, but that is one I put on the agenda here in what might be my last or second last speech in the Dáil. Go raibh míle maith agat, a Chathaoirligh.

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