Joe O'Toole (Independent)

——with their big multi-million pay deals, who pay no price at all. This will not hold. It will bring social and industrial unrest. It cannot hold at the centre unless we bring balance to it. One cannot explain to public servants why they must do what is being asked of them if there is not a balance somewhere else. I am being told also of employers in profitable industries who are using this opportunity not to give pay rises. Why is that allowed? I hear that employers are sacking people they do not like on the basis that they must let people go.

This action will not hold together without balance. There must be recognition that people who are earning good money, whether in the public or the private sector, must pay their share. Senators, including Senator Cummins, clearly made this point yesterday, using the example of the Waterford Crystal pensioners. There must be mortgage protection and an absolute certainty that people will get a better mortgage tax deduction. Nobody should lose his or her house because he or she cannot pay the mortgage after these new changes. An absolute commitment must be given to pensioners in the private sector, where pension trustees have dipped into their funds to do the wrong thing, that the Government will take up the slack. This is about fairness and equity. Until we deal with some of these issues people will not accept what is being asked of them by the Government. Unfairness, inequity and lack of balance must be adjusted.

We should discuss this matter today. I said this yesterday but the Leader did not allow it. He is leaving the issue until tomorrow because he hopes the sting will go out of it. It will not. Our Order of Business is now irrelevant to what is being discussed on radio, in pubs, lounges, schools and hospitals everywhere. We are here, talking in a world of our own, completely disconnected and not engaged with what is happening in the world.