Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to add my voice to support a TRIPS waiver. As I have spoken on the record in this regard on the Order of Business in the convention centre in the past, I will not use my time on it today. I have not spoken on Order of Business since the Taoiseach was with us. I thought the elephant in the room was the fact that the Taoiseach did not give a response on the issue of Seanad reform. I intend to write to him but I ask that the Leader would also write to him on behalf of the House asking for a response to the Senators who raised Seanad reform on the record that day. There have been 13 separate reports on Seanad reform. I was part of the Seanad reform implementation group of the then Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, in the previous Seanad. We worked hard to produce a report and a Bill, which is on the table in this House. I ask the Leader whether she will support that Bill.

I was not here last week when the issue of secretarial assistants' pay was raised. I wish to put my support for that on record. I have spoken on the issue in the past. The starting pay, as we all know, is €11.75 per hour but the living wage is €12.90 per hour. It takes 18 years to climb the scale. We know secretarial assistants do much the same job as parliamentary assistants, who are on a starting salary of €41,000. Senator Kyne dealt with this on the Order of Business last week. I would welcome the Leader's response to it. We have a collective responsibility to deliver for secretarial assistants. In regard to a family-friendly parliament, recommendation 12 of the Ceann Comhairle's forum was that it "recommends a review of the pay scales and role profiles for Secretarial Assistants to increase the starting salary, in light of the comparisons to be drawn with the salaries and role profile of Parliamentary Assistants". One focus of that was the fact that many secretarial assistants, SAs, go on to serve as public representatives as well.