Seanad debates

Wednesday, 5 May 2010

Ministerial Pensions: Motion

 

2:30 pm

Photo of John Gerard HanafinJohn Gerard Hanafin (Fianna Fail)

I second the amendment to the motion moved by Senator MacSharry.

When some lose sight of the past and do not realise why certain arrangements are in place, it is time to recall the pay and conditions of Oireachtas Members in the 1980s. I spoke with a candidate for both the Dáil and the Seanad who ran in several elections in the early 1980s, who was elected in the first Seanad election in 1982 and subsequently re-elected. The personal cost was such that at one point the former Member's bank manager told him not to write any more cheques.

While we work in a privileged position, we do not have security of tenure. The average term a Senator will serve during which he will give his or her best on behalf of the public is 12 years. There was a time when it was possible to receive €2,000 a week on the lump doing labour for a builder in Dublin. We were all scandalised by the pay scale on offer to someone working in a medium-sized company, through statutory compliance, of €200,000 plus benefits. The chief executive officer of a large company was able to earn up to €700,000 a year. Pay and conditions in the Oireachtas tried to keep pace with these developments.

I often hear people claim that in the boom years money was squandered. If it was, it was the people who squandered it because the reality is the Government put the money back into the public domain. There is no doubt that through benchmarking people's pay and conditions improved considerably, including their pension provisions. I do not hear people who served in government between 1994 and 1997 say they should hand back their pensions because the qualifying term was reduced for two years.

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