Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I agree with the Minister on the last point - the nauseating hypocrisy of Independent Newspapers. I do not mind naming it. The company was previously owned by one tax exile and is now owned by another tax exile and is paying executives obscene amounts of money and then attacking other people who are earning far less. That is sickening in the extreme.

The context for most people for this question is the tens of thousands of people who have lost their jobs, cannot make mortgage repayments and are affected by cuts in social welfare allowances and child benefit. They are literally nailed to the wall and they wonder from week to week whether they can make it through the month. Then they find that the new chief executive of the VHI is not satisfied with earning five times the average industrial wage but that in order to take up the job he must earn six times the average industrial wage. That is nauseating also for people because they simply do not understand it.

One must wonder what sort of abilities, talent or business case anyone can make in stating that €191,000 a year is not enough but that they must have €238,000. It is pretty sickening. Are we openly advertising those posts and asking if anyone is out there who could do the job who is willing to work for the limit we have set? I do not think it can be justified for someone to insist on getting approximately €50,000 more than what is already an extremely generous salary by anyone's standards.

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