Dan Boyle (Green Party)

Senator Ross was correct to point out the very rich irony of the making of such a call by someone who represents his organisation as a social partner and who receives a fee of €14,000 for a part-time role on a State body, which is 50% more than the basic rate of social welfare. We could have an opportunity in Private Members' time next week to discuss public appointments and State bodies and develop these points. This debate has been bedevilled by the use of terminology. Those who claim to live in an enterprise culture always talk about subsidies and incentives when it comes to progressing their own agendas and issues that benefit them and those with whom they work but when it comes to social welfare and meeting the most basic of needs in our society, we refer to hand outs and imply people are scrounging on the system. Until we strike the right balance, it will be difficult to make the hard decisions that must be made.

The statement by the director of IBEC earlier was far from helpful. I do not believe there is capacity to ask for his removal from that organisation because it is separate and independent but given that he earns a fee from a State agency which is many times the amount on which social welfare recipients live, he certainly needs to consider his position on that.