David Norris (Independent)

A speaker on the Government Front Bench less than five minutes ago said the Opposition in the Dáil was asleep, its forensic skills were not up to it and it was not wide awake. That tells us that the Government was doing its damnedest to slip something by. It is obvious. We are not complete eejits in this House, whatever about the other place. I have managed with great difficulty to locate the explanatory memorandum, which states:

Section 16 amends the Ministerial pensions legislation. Currently, a pension is payable if the former office holder applies for it within six months of becoming eligible for it; otherwise, it is payable from the date of application [that is the present state]. This amendment will allow for payment to be backdated to a date not earlier than the date of entitlement.

How, for God Almighty's sake, could it be backdated before the date of entitlement? There may be some arcane reason for it that I do not understand. It is clear that the Government is making a special case to backdate a pension that was not applied for. The explanatory memorandum continues:

It also brings the qualifying requirements for a Ministerial pension under the ''old'' (i.e. pre-1993) pension scheme into line with the provisions of the current pension scheme. In effect, it provides for payment of a Ministerial pension to a member of the pre-1993 scheme who has more than two years service as a Minister. This has been the position for members of the current scheme since 2001.

That is a separate item. There is an attempt to blur that by running the two together in what is being said from the Government side. It was interesting to hear the Leader of the House, Senator Donie Cassidy, trying another little rub that will show on the sleaze indicator. He said to the Opposition: "Ask your own crowd. Were they the only ones? Ask your own crowd". In other words, there might be a bit left in the trough for a few Opposition snouts to get to work on. That is the kind of politics we are at. He appears to be laughing at the fact that the Opposition did not notice it going through. It was the Opposition's fault. It was asleep on the job, it did not have the forensic skills and asked the wrong questions. However, he suggests not doing anything about it because there is a bit of gravy left in the trough for the Opposition Members to snuffle around in. I do not regard that as very elevated morality, but who am I?