David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are the ridiculous restrictions on allowances which were given to us to make up for the fact that we did not take pay rises. People in the Civil Service who are our direct counterparts acknowledged this and got them streamed into their main pay but we did not. There was also the abolition of the long service increment. I do not know of another job in Ireland that does not get a long service increment. I believe it was illegal to remove that.

There is the question of sick notes. I have just had a fair amount of illness. Sick notes are averaged. This comes from the Department of Finance. It was not a ministerial thing at all. Some faceless bureaucrat decided that sick notes had to be averaged. They do not trust the doctors any more to say whether one is sick. It is absolutely ridiculous. It is time we stood up and asserted our dignity.If we do not do our work effectively in Seanad Éireann and Dáil Éireann, the public will kick us out very soon. We got €311 in wage restitution - oh jolly, gee, wonderful, sucks, boo. I hope we do not all spend it on the same big bash. It is less than €1 a day. People are always criticising the Taoiseach for the amount of money he gets. Like my colleague, Senator Gavan, I have received a couple of pages listing the earnings of chief executives. Most of them get multiples of what the Taoiseach is paid. Regardless of whether we agree with the decisions being made by the Taoiseach, we must accept that he is making them for the entire country. The executives listed in the document mentioned by Senator Gavan are making decisions for one company. It is time for us to stand up against the tide of populism by saying that as professionals, we deserve the money we get. I suggest that the various allowances should be abolished. We should be given the proper rate for the job so that we do not have to waste time and our secretaries do not have to turn into accountants. When we send stuff off to the relevant personnel at the Standards in Public Office Commission, they come back to us with little niggly things. It is utterly demeaning.