I second the motion. I have learned a number of things since I came into this House. The first of those was to develop and indeed to improve my perception of the people who practice politics in both Houses of the Oireachtas. I came in here, to say the least of it, as a sceptic about people involved in politics. I had a particular virulent, left wing, public opinion view of what I would have seen, and still see, as the establishment in this country.
I want to repeat at the beginning what I have said publicly on many occasions, that while I think the vast majority of Irish politicians, my colleagues in both Houses, are wrong about most things in Irish life, I nevertheless have a greatly improved view of the quality of the individuals who serve in both Houses of the Oireachtas and I do not mean to be offensive. I believe both things to be true. It is quite conceivable and quite true to be able to accept and believe as I do, that most people are wrong and still say, as I do, for the third time since I stood up here, that I have now a much higher view of the people who are involved in Irish politics than I had before I joined the Seanad. That is a remark which will not do me any good in the eyes of many people who write about politics, but it still remains my sincerely held view.
I feel very strongly about this issue of payment of ministerial pensions to people who are still Members of either House of the Oireachtas, because of the damage it does to the quality and image of Irish politics and because I am a person who is, whether it be inside or outside the Oireachtas, committed for life to working for political change. Anything which devalues politics and devalues the worth of politics to my mind, is both an offence to everybody involved and also from my point of view, and obstacle to working for change in Irish society, which is something to which I and indeed many people in Irish politics are committed to from differing prospectives. You cannot persuade a cynical public opinion about the importance and the centrality of politics if you do not have a public impression of politics as an idealistic profession based on conceptions of service and idealism, which is what it is supposed to be about.
We need to look at the realities of life in this country. In this country the average male industrial earnings amount to about £8,000 per annum. The average female industrial earnings amount to a little more than 60 per cent of that, which is around £5,000 per annum. Then we have a quarter of a million people, roughly, who are unemployed and, on average, the payment to each individual on the dole works out at about £55 per week or about £2,700 per year. All of those people who are unemployed sooner or later will become subjected to means test.
The vast majority of the 800,000 people in this country who are totally dependent on social welfare for their income are subjected to means tests because it is felt that there can be no entitlement to payments from the State to people who can afford to support themselves. I do not accept the principle of means testing for benefit, but it is a principle which is accepted by the vast majority of Members of both Houses of the Oireachtas. Workers on relatively low earnings — the second lowest in Europe — and people on social welfare, who are subject to the humiliation of social welfare means test, have had to make sacrifices on an unprecedented scale over the last three or four years. There have been high taxes, extra income levies, reduced benefits in some cases, particularly pay-related benefits, factory closures, cessation or reduction of services, enforced redundancies and reduced services in some case. We were told that the country could not afford it, that we would all have to tighten our belts because of the state of the public finances brought about by policies to which both politicians and public had contributed. It is one of the simplicities of Irish life to blame politicians for all our faults. Nevertheless, we have a situation where people have been asked to accept sacrifices on a grand scale as instanced by the present position of the teachers and the general level of wage and salary earners within the public service.
Consider, then, the position of Ministers and Ministers of State. They have one of the most extraordinary opportunities that can be given to a citizen of this State. I have said before that I would give my right arm to be a member of a Government for a period of three of four years because of the opportunities it presents. I do not know anybody yet who has been a member of a Government who has not found that experience invigorating, stimulating and enormously worthwhile. They have an opportunity for service which is part of the tradition of this country. Let us remember that those who were responsible for setting up this State never thought about financial reward and never worried about the financial insecurity into which they put themselves as they endeavoured to liberate and then to build up the State. Politicians have an opportunity for practical idealism and to show the sort of example that can inspire people to accept collective sacrificies in the interest not just of the future generation but of the existing younger generation. The Government have an opportunity to give an example of commitment on the scale necessary in a country faced with such problems.
What do we do? The first thing we do is we pay our Ministers and Ministers of State very well. By any standards we pay them very well. That is not something I would say — again, I will get myself hanged for saying it — about Members of the Oireachtas. I am quite well off, because I am fortunate to have a job which is compatible with my political activities. Nobody could suggest that full time politicians in either House of the Oireachtas are particularly well paid, given the burdens, the pressures and the demands. Nobody could say either that the pressures on the family lives of politicians — this is something I have come to learn over the last four years — are anything but extremely demanding. One could argue that, if the Roman Catholic Church believes that celibacy is a necessary qualification for service in the priesthood, perhaps a similar qualification should be imposed on politicians, because the strains that are imposed on families as a result of peoples political activities are unknown to those who are not involved in politics — and I speak as one who has very little involvement in the drudgery of constituency work on a day to day basis.
As I said, we pay our Ministers and Ministers of State extremely well. We provide them with extra benefits such as State cars. I find it difficult to reconcile the scale of the benefits, particularly the lavish and apparently unlimited travel that is available, with ideas of commitment, sacrifice and idealism. If they lose office and continue to be Members of the Oireachtas, they descend from the lofty heights of ministerial salaries to the level of payment of Dáil and Seanad Members. If they are particularly unfortunate, they end up in the Seanad. If they are reasonably fortunate, they only end up being demoted to the Opposition benches in the Dáil. As such, they are not particularly well paid; but neither would I say that they are particularly badly paid. Anybody who is earning a salary which is on first glance about twice the average industrial wage — and when you add to that extra benefits in tax-free allowances it is probably closer in net terms to three times the average industrial wage — should not claim to be badly paid. That is OK as far as it goes, considering the demand on people's time, the effort and expenditure involved. That is not unreasonable. But if, on top of all that, after three years ministerial service, they become entitled to an indexed pension, one's credibility, one's credulity and goodwill are strained beyond any possible reasonable limit.
What can the country think of us when by the standards of most people we are better paid, not particularly well paid, but better paid than most people in the community? There is the enormous enjoyment and sacrifice of working in Government for a period of three or four years. Then we decide that we need pensions. At that stage we begin to show the signs of what is often talked about as the Leinster House club mentality and very little signs of the sort of commitment and idealism which should be the backbone of politics.
We are presented with some arguments which are somewhat ludicrous. One is that it is compensation for loss of earnings and the second is that it is meant to encourage people of ability. There are people from various professions in Government. There are teachers, people from lower management levels, academics, people from the professions and trade union officials. Not one of those would be earning a salary anything like a ministerial salary outside of the Oireachtas. To suggest that somehow there is an enormous pool of earnings from which these people could be drawing if they were not involved in Government is ludicrous in the extreme.
I stand over what I have said. The Dáil salary and judicial salaries are more than enough to give people a reasonable lifestyle — not excessive, not particularly generous but more then enough. The suggestion that extra money will attract people of talent and ability into the Oireachtas is even more ludicrous. It was not money which attracted the people who built this State. It will not be money which will attract people with idealism and commitment into politics. It is the possibility of doing something, the possibility of service and the idealism that draws people into politics that is the basis of real political activity. If people are entering politics because of the level of earnings, then they are not the sort of people the country needs in its present state of crisis. We need people who are heroes in the sense that the country has always perceived heroes — people who make sacrifices because they believe they are worthwhile and not because of some idea of incentive or reward. We need people with qualities like Éamon de Valera, Cosgrave and Lemass, none of whom became enriched by their lives in politics. The image we are creating for ourselves by jealously holding on to the pensions that come from ministerial office is an image that destroys any possible public credibility in what we are about. The public perceive ministerial pensions paid to people still involved in politics or in the Judiciary as perks. They do not see them in any way rationally justifiable, in terms of loss of income or in terms of incentive. They see them as a glorious perk.
The perk is something that is now beginning to to seen to corrupt the entire public perception of the practice of politics. It is the one area of financial support for politicians which it is impossible nationally to justify. It goes beyond what is available for anybody else. It goes beyond any necessary protection of people's basic living standards. It goes beyond any necessary idea of preserving people from hardship. It goes into the realm of a reward for temporary office which guarantees a reasonable level of income for people for the rest of their lives. They should be dropped if we are to get a sense of common sacrifice. If people are to accept that sacrifices when called for are shared equally, then sacrifice must start at the top in politics. One simple remedy and expedient would be to deny so-called pensions to people who are in the whole of their health, in the best of their youth and who happen to cease to be members of a Government. That is the way to give some impression that what we are here for is sacrifice, idealism and commitment and not some sort of cosy arrangement by which we all end up substantially better off.