David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I welcome the opportunity to discuss this Bill. It is regrettable that all Stages of the Bill are being forced through with just a little over an hour for discussion. I accept that the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission itself does not determine where savings could be made. That is the job of the Minister for Finance. I take on board the comments of the previous speaker, I want to be helpful and point out to the Minister of State the areas in which savings can be made in future years.

Politicians should be reasonably well paid. We have a difficult job to do. Politicians incur expenses and must travel to Dublin from different parts of the country, for which people should be fairly reimbursed. I also believe we can achieve greater savings in this area, especially at a time when we know that painful decisions are being made that impact on vulnerable people, for example, on carers, and people who are suffering.

Let me give some examples. I believe the salaries of Government representatives at the highest level, be it the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste or Ministers should be capped at ¤100,000. I believe the salary for a Deputy should be reduced to ¤75,000. That is still ¤1,500 a week, a very generous salary in the current economic climate. The salary of Senators should be reduced to ¤60,000. I do not believe the Seanad should be abolished but should be reformed.

I also want to see a number of allowances scrapped altogether. It is small money in the general scheme of things but it would save ¤335,177, which is still significant. It is about whether these allowances are fair. The Ceann Comhairle has expenses of ¤76,603, the Leas Cheann Comhairle has expenses of ¤37,370, the Cathaoirleach has expenses of ¤44,336, and the Leas-Chathaoirleach has expenses of ¤24,429. The party Whips in the Dáil have expenses of ¤78,000. The Leader of the Seanad has expenses of ¤19,439, while Whips have expenses of ¤24,000. The leader's allowance for the Fianna Fáil leader in the Seanad is ¤9,500, while both of the Independent's Leaders allowance is ¤6,000.

There are also a number of allowances paid to committee members which should be abolished. The chairpersons of committees are paid ¤9,500 for mobile phone payments and ¤1,100 in hospitality payments. These are payments on top of what they get as a Member. This should be part of their work.

Some of these payments are just outrageous and they genuinely need to be scrapped. We have the super junior Minister allowance of ¤34,000, and that should also be scrapped. We know that several ministers, including Deputies Joan Burton, Brendan Howlin, Pat Rabbitte, Richard Bruton, Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney have breached the ¤90,000 cap on the salaries of their special advisers.

The mobile phone allowance payable to Members every 18 months is ¤750, but I have not availed of that allowance. We get very generous allowances through the standard parliamentary allowance. Why is a mobile phone allowance of ¤750 for phones and car kits payable every 18 months? What other job would pay such an allowance? These allowances should be cut.

We continually put our position on the record but it is often misrepresented by members of the Government parties that we do not want politicians to be reasonably paid. We want politicians to be reasonably paid. What I have set out is fair in a climate in which we are asking people who are genuinely suffering to take cuts. We must give leadership. We must ensure we are achieving real savings so that people can see the cuts are genuine and being applied across the board. If the cuts I have outlined were accepted, it would shave ¤5 million off the Oireachtas bill this year, next year and the following year. I hope adjustments can be made in the coming years yet still allow Oireachtas Members to be reasonably well paid.