Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senators for their contributions on the new provision that has been inserted into the legislation, with which the House dealt last week. The new section 3 is an enabling provision relating to the contingency where the Minister for Finance may decide to adopt a standard parliamentary allowance. A decision has not been made on the matter but I can confirm that discussions and consultations will take place in respect of it.

I was a member of the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission when I served as a Senator and I am aware that its role in matters such as this is to provide advice to the Minister. The proposal came from the commission and the Minister has put in place, by means of an amendment, the necessary legislation to implement it if that is his decision. However, such a decision has not yet been made. The proposal clearly requires more work, consideration and consultation before a decision is made. It is highly unlikely that it will be made before the autumn.

Senator Twomey made the point that there are many other broader and relevant considerations in respect of this matter. If it were the case that one could not take action until one had considered everything that might conceivably be connected with a matter, I suspect one would never get anything done. Inevitably, one must deal in a piecemeal fashion with issues as they arise.

The Minister for Finance pointed out in his budget speech that he asked the review body on higher remuneration in the public sector to study pay at higher levels throughout the sector, among both elected and unelected officeholders, and to compare it with that which obtains in comparable developed countries that are similar in size to Ireland. The report of the review body is to be presented to the Minister by the end of September. Recommendations which might be made in respect of these matters by an bord snip nua, as it is popularly termed, will also be taken into consideration.

Deputies are paid the same amount that applies at the maximum of the scale of principal officers in the Civil Service. Senators are paid 70% of the salary which applies in respect of Deputies. As for MEPs, that legislation was required specifically to deal with the implementation of an European Parliament decision on pay and conditions that only pertained to MEPs. The legislation in question reflected the terms of the decision by the European Parliament and European Union's institutions on the MEP salary system and was required before the new Parliament met.

I will deal with some other points that were made, all of which were interesting. In some of my remarks, which will be clearly indicated, I will be speaking for myself rather than in any collective sense. Senator Twomey referred to people working in offices. I have the same three people working on constituency matters for me now as I did when I was a backbench Deputy. The only difference is the number of hours done. I could have had more but consciously decided not to.