Senator Bacik speaking on Haiti, Public Sector Pay and the Banking Inquiry

Order of Business

Senator Ivana Bacik: I join others in welcoming Senator Mooney to the House. I have not had the pleasure of working with him previously, given that I am a relatively new Senator, but I look forward to doing so in the future.

I ask the Leader for a debate on overseas aid. It is a topic that is uppermost in many of our minds as we see the horrific effects of the dreadful earthquake in Haiti. It certainly put our problems with water shortages, the big snow and the freeze, etc. into perspective for all of us in the past week. I congratulate the Government on sending aid so promptly to Haiti. However, it shows the need for us to ensure we maintain our levels of overseas aid spending which I was distressed to see cut in the budget. A debate on this would be appropriate at this time.

I also want to raise a different issue for debate with the Leader, that is, the effect of the public sector pay cut on a particular group of individuals, namely, research contract staff in universities and third level institutions. This was raised with me by the Trinity Research Staff Association, but clearly it has implications across third level institutions. It seems that these contract staff, many of whom are paid by the private sector by trusts and research funds and who have no security of employment because they are only on contract, will be made subject to the public sector pay cut as if they were civil servants or tenured public servants. If we cannot have a debate, I wish to table a matter on the Adjournment. I will have support from my colleagues among the university Senators. It is an issue we need to look at.

I support the call made by Senators Fitzgerald, Alex White and O'Toole for a debate on the banking inquiry. Listening to an interview with the Minister, Deputy Gormley, it really seems as if the Green Party and Fianna Fáil are speaking about two different inquiries to be conducted in parallel, one in private and one in public, one with a short timeframe and one which could go on until after the next election. In terms of the timeframe and the way the inquiry is to be conducted, it seems that the Green Party and Fianna Fáil are speaking in two different voices.

…We need to know the exact nature of the inquiry [the banking inquiry]. When the Minister, Deputy Gormley, states he is satisfied with the shape of it, all we can conclude is that this inquiry is likely to be pear-shaped because it does not seem it is being put together with any sort of coherence. It reminds me of a quote in the US used famously in the 1960s — the rich get richer and the poor get prison. In the US they have reformed their criminal justice structures on white collar crime to ensure people are made accountable where the banking system collapsed and inquiries were conducted in a timely fashion. We have much to learn from that. Unfortunately, in Ireland, it seems the rich still get richer and the poor still get prison.