Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

Five or six of them, including the chief executives of An Post, CIE, RTE and Dublin Airport Authority, earn more than the cap of €250,000. The Minister is allowing the cap to be breached, but it was the Minister who made an issue of the caps and decided to introduce them in the first place. When he introduces a cap, he should stick to it. Every Sunday the papers contain reports of the cap being breached, often with the personal approval of the Minister. That undermines the principle. I do not want to attack individuals - I will not even mention anyone by name - but the Minister made a rod for his own back by saying he was introducing a cap and then allowing it to be breached. Had he not done that, we would not be having these questions.

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