David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House, but I do not welcome the Bill, or at least not all of it. The message should go out loud and clear to the public that the Taoiseach has had his salary reduced by 40% and the Tánaiste and Ministers have seen a reduction of more than 35%. We must also highlight the considerable reductions applied to the remuneration of Members of the Dáil and Seanad. In addition, there has been a 25% reduction in certain allowances for Dublin Members. That is all splendid but, as I see it, the public does not give a damn. If we left everything of ours to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, stripped ourselves naked and jumped off the roof, the response would be "So what?". These proposals are not going to impress the public. They are merely intended as a public relations exercise and represent, in effect, a fiddling and farting around with a number of ancillary matters. Of course it is ridiculous that people should be still working in their job in the Dáil - it is always the Dáil because it is applicable only to Ministers - and also receiving a pension for the job they previously did. Receiving a pension while at the same time receiving wages for continuing to work in essentially the same capacity is silly and very difficult to justify.

The Minister and his officials very courteously provided me with a submission I made on this issue. I began my letter by stating:

First of all, can I say that I recognise this is a time when many people in this country are suffering to an extraordinary extent financially and are finding it very difficult to survive. This means that it may seem insensitive and indeed even immoral for people engaged in the profession of politics, despite having accepted various cuts, pension reductions and negative adjustments in terms of income, to attempt to justify even a reduced income for themselves.

I am well aware of all that. However, the public will not be impressed by anything we do in this regard. As such, I suggest something far more radical, namely, that we abolish all allowances and engage an independent assessor of international reputation to decide what remuneration we should receive. I do not want to waste my time collecting invoices, taxi receipts and so on. It adds enormously to what is already a very busy and stressful job. I am not a part-time Senator, although there are some such. From my recollection of the debate, the four Taoiseach's appointees who recommended these changes come to mind. I am not criticising them, but the reality is that they have jobs and alternative sources of income. Moreover, they were not elected. It is comparatively easy for them to suggest, as some of them have, that we should work for half pay. Meanwhile, the suggestions from elsewhere that we should do the job for nothing would lead to an aristocracy of millionaires in this Chamber. Incidentally, that is one section of the population that seems to be growing. I do not want that. I want people in here who, for instance, have been unemployed.

I also said in my letter that under the party spokesperson system, members of political parties have people who are assigned special responsibilities, usually in one area of policy. As Independent Members, we have to cover the whole lot, which is a considerable addition in terms of the workload of research and preparation. However, we in this corner of the House are among the most prolific speakers. In addition, we have all brought forward legislation, without any assistance from parliamentary draftsmen or others.

The Minister spoke about how this legislation developed. I remember very clearly how it developed, namely, by way of another of these public relations exercises whereby we did not take national wage agreement increases. The Minister for Finance at the time, by sleight of hand, started producing these various allowances that nobody quite understood but which arrived in the form of a cheque and evened things up for us.

We are linked to the senior civil servants' trade union and they had their allowances absorbed into their core pay. That is something not dissimilar from what I am saying, which is to abolish all the allowances and then get an independent person to say how much these things cost. I think things like "half pay" are wrong. People in the army get half pay as a punishment. I also do not understand why electoral expenses are not allowed, particularly for Independents. This is huge for us as we have no support for party funds, even though a huge amount of money is made available for parties every year. These funds are needed for us to keep our job. With the enormous expansion of the university constituency, which will be provided for by the Government, why should this legitimate expense not be allowed?

From a public relations point of view, if people are not impressed by the Taoiseach taking a 40% cut, they will not be impressed by this, so it is a disaster from a PR point of view. There are simpler ways of dealing with it. I will not take the populist route. It is easier for people who have additional external sources of income, who did not have to pay election expenses so on and who are part-time in this House, to make sacrifices on behalf of the people who are in this House five days a week. I used to be here six days a week and I was the person who got the Seanad opened on a Saturday, but it was closed because it only I and a few other Independents came in.