Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I spoke about this on Second Stage. When I took the Order of Business for the Leader some weeks ago, a number of Senators raised their concerns, views and sentiments, which have been repeated here, regarding the value of secretarial assistants. I fully support what our Members here have said about their role and how it has evolved as has the work they do. Forms of media have evolved. It is important this is recognised. As Senator Buttimer said, I have been a member of the commission for more than a year. This has always been on the agenda, with regard of the status of the case in the Workplace Relations Commission and how it was progressing. We should not reopen the entire debate if there is political consensus that the position be regraded, which is what this is about. It is not about a salary increase. It is about regrading the salaries of secretarial assistants of Members of both Houses. The political system is always afraid to do anything that might be seen to benefit politicians. This is not the case here. We are speaking about the people who work with and support politicians. It reminds me of the issue of councillors' pay. The Government was paralysed by fear of doing anything that might be commented on. When the worthy pay increase happened for councillors there was not much talk about it. This is important. We are speaking about very valuable public servants who do a job. They should be recognised with a newly defined role on the basis of the work they do.