Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have been listening to the debate in my office. I did not jog here, because I am in a brace, but I did walk very swiftly. I did not get to contribute yesterday. We are all speaking about our own secretarial assistants and people who we have worked with. I have to speak about Ellen Murphy who works with me. She does the Lord's work and goes above and beyond. We are a team. She keeps the office going. Everyone has said this. She has kept things flowing smoothly over the past year, particularly when my father was sick and subsequently died. Every day she goes above and beyond not only for me and my office but for many staff in Leinster House. She is a shop steward. She is also a damned good egg who helps many secretarial assistants and Leinster House staff. I often see her giving counsel and guidance to people. Sometimes we forget that our staff do not just work for us. They work in the Oireachtas. They work in Leinster house. They make this building a better place. They make the work we do better. Therefore, hopefully, they make the governance and leadership we do better. I had to come here to reference the work she is doing. She is very heavily involved in this particular issue and I am giving her every last bit of support I can on it.

We speak about remuneration a lot. Much of the conversation focuses on pay at the very beginning of the pay scale, what remuneration people get when they come in and the fact it is so much lower in comparison with personal assistants and other such pay scales. Something we do not talk a huge amount about is the pensions at the other side of it. A staff member who has 20 years service will have a pension of approximately €8,000 a year. Senators will get this after a couple of years working here. Someone with 20 years of service is coming out with a minuscule amount in comparison with some of us who may be here for a very short time. I hope it is a good time but perhaps it will be a very short time. There is also the other end when people are leaving here and the pension and years of service they have given are not reflected. I want to put this on the record.

We have spoken a great deal about secretarial assistants working on housing assistance payment and family payment applications and helping out on all of these things. They spend their days on the phone helping members of the public. In the Seanad, there are varying opinions on whether people should be referred to as constituents. Sometimes they have to go home and do these very same applications for themselves because they simply cannot afford to live on the wages they have. A secretarial assistant in my office is filling out an application for a housing form for herself. This is not acceptable. It is very frustrating to read over it and make suggestions. It is not right or acceptable. We need to stand for a living, fair and decent wage. Without these secretarial assistants and people doing this work and helping members of the public we would be lost. I know all of this has been said. We have supports and we need supports but it is not acceptable that we are standing over our own staff not being able to afford to live or look after their families and being faced with the idea that they simply cannot afford to rent near Leinster House and so cannot accept the job. They are brilliant intelligent people. They help us make a change but some of them cannot even afford to come to work for us. This is not acceptable. It is not just about the beginning of the pay scale, it is also about when people are leaving Leinster House. It is not okay that we have secretarial assistants who require the housing assistance payment, the working family payment and other such things in order that they can help us do our jobs.