Boyd Barrett calls for reduction in politicians' pay

POLITICAL REFORM should include cutting politicians’ pay rather than cutting the number of TDs, the Dáil has heard.

United Left Alliance TD Richard Boyd Barrett said the “salaries of deputies, Ministers and the Taoiseach are high compared to our European counterparts or most other public representatives elsewhere in the world”.

However, the number of public representatives per head of population “is the same as most European countries”.

“The notion that we have too many is not the problem. It would be better to cut pay and put us in the same material position as those we represent rather than cut the number of members.”

The Dún Laoghaire TD was speaking during a debate on Dáil reform introduced by Government Chief Whip Paul Kehoe, who asked Mr Boyd Barrett if he would give up the €30,000 allowance he gets as an Independent TD. He replied that he would “support cutting the amount”.

He said “much of the alienation the public feels about the political system arises from the perception that politicians live in a different world from those they purport to represent”.

He added that left alliance members take “only the average industrial wage and the rest of the money goes into the campaigns, issues and organisations with which we are involved”.

He said this makes politicians “truly representative of society”.

Announcing proposals for Dáil reform, Mr Kehoe stressed that the Government would introduce “radical reform of the way the Dáil operates to make it fit for purpose in the 21st century”.

It will increase Dáil sittings by 50 per cent and there will be a “vastly reduced recess this summer”.

The House currently sits about 93 days a year.

Mr Kehoe said the “programme for government also proposes to introduce a four-day working week”. Friday sittings would include committee meetings and “we will have fewer committees but they will be focused on detailed work programmes”.

He confirmed the establishment of an investigations, oversight and petitions committee to “provide a channel of consultation and collaboration with the ombudsman and to manage a new ‘public petitions’ system for redress of grievances relating to public administration or services”.

However, Fianna Fáil whip Sean Ó Fearghail suggested that the Government was already excluding the Opposition in its reforms. He said that “very little” of what Opposition TDs suggested in a debate on the new committee system “is included in proposals”.

Sinn Féin party whip Aengus Ó Snodaigh said the quangos, “various bodies to which power has been ceded”, must be made accountable to the parliament and must be more responsive than “just issuing an annual report or visiting a relevant committee once a year”.

In her maiden speech, Marcella Corcoran-Kennedy (FG, Laois-Offaly) welcomed the proposal to ensure that women make up at least 30 per cent of candidates in the next election.

“It is a shame that we have had to go the legislative route and that this has not happened voluntarily.

“We, however, cannot avoid the fact that in 2007, 17 per cent of the total number of candidates running in the general election were women and that dropped to just 15 per cent this year. In my constituency I was the only female among 21 candidates.”

She said “there are sincere people who are convinced that we do not need quotas. However, I appeal to them to give quotas a chance to work. It has been proven internationally that quotas work.”