Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)

I will be brief. Given all the clamour regarding politicians' expenses in the newspapers every day, I would like to tell the Minister for Finance and other members of the Government that no Member of this House or the other House are pariahs. We are being branded in the media almost as criminals. Some of us, who have no income other than what we receive as Deputies and Senators, are working very hard. I challenge any journalist to come out with me in Cork South-Central for the four days a week I am there, or to stay here with me in Dublin, to see the work the members of different parties do — I include all of us in that.

We are getting wrongly blamed for representing the people. If the commission wanted to change the terms of reference for all of us, it should have done so. However, the media should stop hounding politicians and blaming us for the ills of the world. I feel strongly about this, while it might not be politically correct to say it. I accept there must be a tightening of the belt and I put my hand up in that regard. However, politicians on local councils and town councils, and Members of this House and the other House, should not be cast as bad people. We are not. We work damn hard for the people. I challenge any journalist to come out with me.

Part of the problem, of course, is that the number of officials employed by Ministers and Ministers of State has gone beyond a joke, although that is a different issue which I will not go into now. I crave the indulgence——