Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We do have a race to the bottom. As Senator Norris quite rightly said, if we turned up for work here and were not paid at all, we would still be paid too much for some people. We have to have a very honest discussion in Ireland if we are to attract younger people into politics, which young people in many cases are leaving professions and are coming into a precarious situation where, as Senator McDowell said the other night, effectively they are rendering themselves unemployable at the end of their career. If we do not have that discussion, politics is fast going to become the preserve of those who have nothing to lose. We are going to narrow very sharply and very soon the base of people who will come in here and who will want to come in here. We have to have an honest discussion on it.

I agree with many of the comments that were made about how the place is perceived outside. That is our fault too in terms of how we portray ourselves. There is a job for the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission to do in terms of making people more au fait with the work of Deputies and Senators, members of the Government, members of the public service who work here and others. This is far from Disneyland. I can assure people that as a rural Deputy with a massive constituency to cover, it is far from the Shangri-La that some people would espouse in the lofty confines of the other estate. However, it is an honourable profession.

If we are to attract people into it, then we need to start having an honest conversation about how we attract them, what we do with them when they are here, and what happens to them when they are unceremoniously ditched, as they can be at a much younger age now because politics has become more fluid. Do they become perennial members of the scrapheap of life or do they have an alternative career? Do they have something to offer maybe in the public service? I have raised it at meetings here before. Why is it that politicians are excluded, for want of a better word, for taking up a career in the public service other than in teaching? Why is it that they cannot become ambassadors for instance?