Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses to the committee. The people who talk to me across the constituency and in the country feel very hurt by the banks, in particular by Bank of Ireland. They see that people who are in distress with their mortgages are not getting the support in terms of debt relief from the bank. They see that the taxpayer has invested €5.7 billion in the bank, yet the bank has increased the rate of interest on credit card debt and has not reduced the variable interest rate on mortgages in line with the ECB interest rates. They also see bank services being reduced in rural communities.

They also know that Mr. Walsh was a former Minister and Mr. Considine was a former Secretary General and both retired prior to the age that normal people retire at and are in receipt of pensions from the public pay purse above €100,000. They will know from the details of this committee that they are the highest paid public interest directors in the State. To date the amount of fees paid to the two public interest directors totals €600,000. This is on top of the lavish public sector pensions. When the legislation was enacted to create public interest directors, the people believed that those who were appointed under the legislation would protect their interest. It is clear that is not the case. We dealt with this yesterday. Public interest directors are the same as any other director of a board. Given the amount of money they receive from the public purse - in particular Mr. Considine was granted the benefit of additional years in his retirement - is it appropriate that they have received an additional €600,000 since 2009 as a director of Bank of Ireland?