Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am fully supportive of the Bill for further and higher education, innovation and so on. As I said in my Second Stage contribution, I have spent most of my working life fighting for equal treatment for people doing the same job. The education sector was notorious for people carrying out duties and not being paid for them. I have always held the belief that if one does the job, one should be paid the price. However, a precedent was established by the previous Government that a super junior Minister could sit at the Cabinet table and not be paid for the work she did. In fairness to Ms Mary Mitchell O'Connor, she did a phenomenal amount of work in education and equality. She was an excellent Minister and the nature of politics is that she is not back here. That is more a pity for Dáil Éireann and the Oireachtas than anything else.Knowing there are thousands of people in the country who have just found out through the media today that their €350 a week will drop to €300 while others will drop to €250 or €203, we are taking Oireachtas time to create a position so that somebody can get an additional allowance. It creates a total lack of empathy between the Oireachtas and the people who put us here.

At this particular juncture, in the middle of a pandemic, the last thing we should be doing is thinking about ourselves. It will smack with the public as people in this House living in a bubble, not a cocoon like some of the poor unfortunates in their 70s, but a bubble that is totally and utterly lacking in empathy in any way with the ordinary citizens of the country who put us here. It is wrong in every sense of the word to do this.

I understand there is a tripartite Government in place and that we need to ensure the three parties are treated equally but I do not think today, this early in the middle of a pandemic, is the time to do it. We could have held back and waited to see what way the economy will respond to what is an horrendous time. My colleague, Senator McDowell, said that we have no idea what way this will impact the world economy. The one thing we can be damn sure of is that it is not going to be anything like it was in January of this year or December of last year. We are heading into an horrendous time. We should not do this and I will oppose the amendment. I ask that the Government reconsiders it and thinks about the people we represent and the people who look to us to show some degree of empathy with what they are suffering.