Seanad debates

Tuesday, 13 February 2018

2:30 pm

Photo of Catherine NooneCatherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We have made populist moves to try to endear ourselves to a public that has no interest in many of the moves in question. For example, I do not think we should have done away with ministerial cars. We get no gratitude for that kind of thing. It reduces a nexus. If we are going to degrade ourselves, how is the public supposed to feel about us? I do not think this is party political. It has gone on for years. We hear it in the way people speak about the Seanad and the Dáil. The Seanad is seen as a crèche or a retirement home. I think we need to have a good look at this as a profession.

Councillors are professionals and they need to be treated as such. I do not know of any other profession in which someone would proudly issue a press release announcing that he or she is not going to accept expenses to go to meetings. It is a joke. This is happening across the board. Soon it will go back to the way it was at the beginning, when privileged people were involved in politics.

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