Larry Butler (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Bill. It is important we recognise that we have a difficult economy which has been ailing for the past 12 months. We are now responding to the private sector, which has taken very substantial pay cuts of between 15% and 25%. This Bill makes a statement to the 400,000 people who are unemployed to the effect that we understand what they are going through and will reduce our salaries in response.

It is not acceptable that Senators or Ministers should draw a pension while still working and the provision to change that aspect is the most just part of this Bill. However, I agree with Senator Buttimer on the subject of increments. As Senator Hanafin said, there were regulations and agreements in place for this House but this Bill diminishes them and that is a mistake. It has cost some people a fortune to go into politics, whether they ran for Dáil Éireann, Seanad Éireann or local authorities. Senator McCarthy rightly empathises with people who were broke when they left politics and I also know such people. There is no guarantee of a job in politics. One is lucky if the people vote for one and put one into either this or the Lower House. I am very grateful to be here.

What really lets the system down badly is that when we go to the trouble of dealing with legislation such as this, there is a situation in this House which we have not dealt with and I do not know whether we have the courage to deal with it. Although this is not the time to be doing it, I want to bring to the Minister of State's attention that €500,000 is spent by these Houses on RTE and the national and multinational press which work out of this building. I would like to see some effort in this area. These are all profitable organisations whose representatives in these Houses are highly paid, use telephones and desks, and enjoy heating and subsidised food. Despite this, they write stories about public representatives not doing their jobs while they can telephone their granny in Australia, New Zealand or wherever at the expense of the State. It is time we had the courage to stop that. A sum of €500,000 would keep a great many people looking after the sick and elderly in our hospitals. I would like to see that addressed and I will address it in more detail tomorrow morning on the Order of Business. When we legislate we should not take the soft options. That is an option which could have been in the Bill and is one we should still look at. I do not see why Dr. Tony O'Reilly's journalists or those from The Irish Times who are in these Houses should be subsidised by this or any Parliament for that matter. While it is important they play their part, I have not heard any one of them giving good press to any politician no matter what time of the morning we sit.

This legislation is welcome. I am happy to be a Member of this House and I am happy to take a reduction in salary as a signal to the people who are not so happy, who are unemployed and who may have very little hope in life. At least we can make some contribution towards the retention of the small amount of money that such people are paid to keep them in basic food and services to which they are entitled and to which they contributed.

I thank the Minister of State for coming to this House where he spends a great deal of time. He gives Members an excellent explanation of all of the legislation he presents in this House and I thank him for that.