Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

He continues:

"I don't have a great stomach for the targeting game," Pat Rabbitte on Monday told a broadcaster who is paid several times the Taoiseach's salary. Neither do I.

In his Irish Times column on Wednesday, Vincent Browne wondered: if we all had started out on a desert island and were asked to decide on how the wealth "accumulated by our collective efforts" should be distributed, is it likely we would have agreed to a dispersal of income and wealth the way our society does it? "If anyone suggested that bookies, oil magnates extracting resources from some of the poorest countries in the world and concrete manufacturers would be paid at multiples of thousands what those keeping the peace, caring for children and old people, looking after the sick and educating people were paid," he asked, "wouldn't we think they were bonkers?"

This is an interesting philosophical question. Here's another: why should someone who sits snarling, sneering and spitting fury in a television studio be paid more than a taxi driver who does essentially the same job while also managing to keep his vehicle on the road?

But this has given me a great idea. To avoid even the whiff of hypocrisy arising from the fulminations of journalists about the incomes of others, I propose we introduce a Standard Proletarian Wage (SPW) of €30,000 a year. All citizens, including journalists, would be free to opt for this, "gifting" the remainder of their salaries to the State. Everyone would be free to retain their existing incomes, but those who failed to sign up to the SPW would not be entitled to denounce others on the basis of their incomes or possessions.

It might not solve our financial problems, but it would do wonders for our stomachs.

I thought that was a good article, which captured the mood of things. There are almost no measures of austerity to which I would not agree in the public interest; I am the same as most other Members of the House in this regard. However, it must be done in an appropriate way. Deputy Phil Hogan mentioned this when asked whether he would be giving up the 5% of his salary that Deputy Kenny was giving up. The Irish Independent stated on Friday, 20 February 2009:

Fine Gael frontbencher Phil Hogan yesterday refused to elaborate on the "personal circumstances" preventing him following his party leader in taking a voluntary pay cut...

"My personal financial circumstances don't allow me to take a voluntary pay cut. I'm taking the 10.6pc pension levy and 2pc income levy and the 10pc cut in expenses like everybody else," Mr Hogan said.

He continued: "Members of the Oireachtas and members of the Fine Gael parliamentary party will adhere to the law and adhere to Government policy the same as everybody else". I agree with him 100%. I praise the many people who have given up their pension entitlements and, more to the point, those who have found themselves in a position to afford to do so. Who knows what outgoings people have? I am only familiar with my own; I am not familiar with Senator Twomey's, nor would I presume to dictate what he should or could give to charity or otherwise.

I am a recent convert to Facebook, and there is no question as to the palpable anger of the public - the justifiable anger that people have about the circumstances we are in. The regulatory environment, both nationally and internationally, allowed a set of circumstances which has resulted in the world being robbed of much of its wealth. With the benefit of hindsight and as a Fianna Fáil politician, there is no question that there are certain things we would have done differently had we known what Fine Gael, at the time, clearly did not know either, because it was advocating further increases in expenditure.

Many interest groups, trade unions and others wanted higher pay, greater investment in capital and so on. However, circumstances have changed substantially since then and, as a result, the Government has changed its mind and its focus, establishing admiration-winning measures under the leadership of the Taoiseach and, in particular, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Lenihan, over the last two and a half years. These measures have been painful and have hit every family in the country. There was nothing vote-winning about them, but they were necessary. This morning, the European Commission praised these measures and asked that they continue in order that Ireland show leadership in areas in which Greece and others have failed heretofore. We hope, in the interests of all European citizens, that Greece will be able to lift the ball and do what we have done very well.

Quite a few years ago, I and others in the House called for the establishment of a commission for a fairer Ireland, a voluntary forum which all pillars of society would be invited to attend, without expenses or any similar payments. In this way we could begin to decide how the country could best go forward in terms of pay scales, pensions and so on, with contributions from everybody. This is the sort of thing with which I would agree. If there are pensions we need to cut or abolish, that forum would be the best place in which to decide on this. In the meantime, I welcome the gestures made by many, such as Senator Feargal Quinn and others, in foregoing salaries and pensions. It is just, if they can afford it, that they do forego those payments, but they are not breaking the law by continuing to receive them.

One wonders what the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission, and particularly the communications unit, is for. I, for one, am disgusted that an impression has been created in the newspapers which has gone unchallenged by paid personnel of the Houses of the Oireachtas. I do not know why we have communications people if they are not prepared to respond to insinuations in the media. Senator X or Deputy Y clocked in for seven out of ten days. Unfortunately-----