Call for TDs to document expenses

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent has said TDs and Senators should provide receipts for their expenses.

He said that members of the Oireachtas demanded lots of bureaucracy and paperwork for the means-testing, cross-referencing and checking of welfare claims to ensure people did not receive money under false pretences.

"We in the Dáil can claim expenses without the need for any receipts to vouch for them. We need to apply the same rules to ourselves as we apply to other people for social welfare. All our expenses should be vouched for by receipts so things are clear and transparent."

Mr Sargent, who was speaking during the debate on the Social Welfare Law Reform and Pensions Bill, said that cynicism in the public mind was not helped when such facts came to light time and again when the House debated social welfare.

Finian McGrath (Independent, Dublin North Central) said that some 19.4 per cent of the population, 780,000 people, experienced relative income poverty.

"The position of older people has deteriorated significantly in recent years and their poverty rate has increased by twice the average figure. The rate of in-work poverty has doubled and stands at 9 per cent, with 157,000 people affected."

Barry Andrews (FF, Dún Laoghaire), who is in his late 30s, said that it was time to address the question of persuading people of his generation, and those who were younger, to take out pensions.

"I have reached the age where I am beginning to acknowledge my mortality," he said.

Mr Andrews called for a public awareness programme on the issue. "It is not appropriate to consider a mandatory pension scheme at the moment because it is a soft option."