Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The fifth of the papers laid before the Seanad, which are listed on page 164 of the Order Paper. The Government kindly incorporated, with the support of all sides in the Dáil, a provision into the Finance Bills of 2001 and 2002 which allows Members of the House who, for principled reasons, could not accept a pay increase to waive it. I ask the Leader to obtain details from the Minister for Finance of the number of Members from each House who waived their pay increases. Will she also inquire whether the Minister would be prepared to share the money returned to him among those of us who were unprincipled enough to take the pay increase?