I express my condolences to the Cathaoirleach and his family, as well as to the family of Senator Coghlan. The loss of a brother or sister is tough and I have had to face it myself, with two sisters and one brother now gone. I wish the Cathaoirleach well as he works his way through this time.

We had a debate today on class K PRSI and how it applied to Members of the Oireachtas. The Taoiseach, Deputy Varadkar, changed the class of PRSI that applied to city and county councillors in 2016 and brought them into class S. It is my hope that we will find some way to do that for Members of the Oireachtas. I would like a debate on the terms and conditions that apply to Members of the Oireachtas and members of city and county councils. We do not have the same terms and conditions as any other worker in the State.

In the area of long-service increments, for example.

Today I was told by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection that we have very generous pension schemes. We do not have generous pension schemes. All that anybody who is here for a short period of time can expect to get is about €8,000 or €9,000, which is hardly generous. One thing that needs to be looked at is access to additional voluntary contributions, in particular, last-minute additional voluntary contributions. These should be available to city and county councillors, many of whom are finding that because of the change that took place from class K to class S, they are not in a reckonable year for welfare once they have lost their seat. Not everybody in a council has two jobs and for quite a number of them, it is their only employment. We need to have an open and honest debate about this. What are we afraid of? I could not care less what people think about me arguing for our terms and conditions of employment. We are employees of this State like anybody, albeit that we are called "officers" of the State.

If my memory serves me well, the Senator had a Commencement matter on this issue this morning, which was dealt with.