Eoghan Harris (Independent)

In my experience, this is a fair-minded assembly, except on the rare occasion on which it is gripped by party fever. I ask the House to put on its fair-minded apparatus to hear two points. I support the call of Senators O'Toole and O'Reilly for the brunt of any cuts to be borne by those parts of the public sector best able to bear them, and that means starting with ourselves. Far too many Ministers, from the Taoiseach down, are paid far too much with too many ministerial pensions and there are far too many fat cat civil servants retired on €155,000 and upwards. Let them bear the brunt first because no else is able to bear it. If there are any rich people left in Ireland, and there are some, they are not property developers because they are all in NAMA. With regard to whatever is to be divided out, looking objectively at the State one will see those best able to bear the burden are those in the upper echelons of the scale in permanent and pensionable employment. I am all for taxing the rich and the farmers, but after that one still needs to look at the public sector. Those of us in the political class should bear the brunt of it first by taking a cut.

I ask fair-minded Members of the House, particularly Senators Ó Murchú and Norris, to consider the gap between the treatment of the state of Israel and the great Russian Federation on the matter of passports. When the Israelis abused our passport, the Minister for Foreign Affairs made a song and dance about it. Hwever, when the intelligence service of the Russian Federation abused it, he was mute. One could understand it if officials in the Israeli Embassy were to show a certain cynicism as a result. They cannot express it, but I can. The gap in the behaviour of the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the case involving the Russian Federation and in that involving the Israelis can be measured by using four words - mendacity, double standards and hypocrisy.