Sargent challenges FG to forgo payments

MINISTER OF State Trevor Sargent has suggested Dáil reform “may well mean fewer” junior Ministers, but he called on Fine Gael to prove its sincerity in demanding change by forgoing the €20,000 payment the party’s Oireachtas committee chairmen receive.

He was speaking in a Dáil debate on a Fine Gael Private Members’ motion calling on the Government to reduce the number of Ministers of State by eight from 20 and to reduce the ministerial staff allocated to work on constituency matters to two per Minister.

Mr Sargent said that when people are in government they “go soft” on change and when in Opposition they push harder for reform.

He agreed there should be a reduction in the number of Oireachtas committees but he noted that “strangely that does not feature in your motion”.

He insisted that Fine Gael “can act unilaterally”.

He said: “I wonder whether when we hear about the €20,000 being paid to members of Fine Gael who chair Oireachtas committees, why you wouldn’t declare your sincerity and say ‘we will forgo our €20,000’.”

Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Phil Hogan, who introduced the motion, said former taoiseach Bertie Ahern increased the number of Ministers because he wanted to “appease the unease of his own parliamentary party” but there was no justification for this increase in Ministers or in committees.

The motion on reform was about “saving taxpayers’ money and making Ireland more competitive and about fairness”.

The Fine Gael TD said that “committees are important but not that many”. There were four Ministers of State in the Department of Health “at a time when the HSE is not even accountable to this House”, he said. “What do these people do?”

Alan Shatter (FG, Dublin South) said a number of Ministers of State had “mysterious roles”.

He said Mr Sargent appeared to be “Minister for Wild Mushrooms. His primary function is to pop up every so often on the media surrounded by vegetables . . . and he runs a website of happy hints on how to do your garden. I don’t think it requires €150,000 paid by taxpayers” for this and for advisers.