Joe O'Toole (Independent)

The Minister of State has a great and admirable facility for soaring off into issues that are barely relevant. His response, notably his little history lesson, was interesting but an example of an old trick, which is ingrained in him, of saying 95 things with which we all agree and ignoring the five things with which we fundamentally disagree.

I will briefly explain the difference between the two amendments. In the case of the amendment on teaching, as I informed the Minister of State, the marginally earlier retirement for teachers developed over many years and following lengthy consideration. The matter was, as the Minister of State pointed out, considered by the Commission on Public Service Pensions. He failed to state, however, that the representative of education on the commission was utterly opposed to the position it adopted on teachers, or that this position received no support from education management, education practitioners or parents' groups. Moreover, no agreement could be reached during consultations with the teaching unions afterwards.

The sequence of events, therefore, was that considerable discussion took place, including the deliberations of the Commission on Public Service Pensions, a body on which I recently expressed my view that while they are decent individuals, as a group they are by no means pro-teacher. The recommendation was then inserted in the legislation without any movement being achieved in the consultations, negotiations and discussions, which brings us to the current position, with which I utterly disagree.

Public representatives and politicians are an altogether different matter. There is no doubt that the best Minister ever to deal with the career prospects, conditions of service and pension entitlements of politicians is the current Minister for Finance and I would defend him on that issue anywhere. Incidentally, the second best Minister in this regard was the late John Boland, who was also prepared to take a strong and unpopular stand on public representatives. We can now leave this issue to one side.

Did the Minister of State read what the report of the Commission on Public Service Pensions stated on politicians?