Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The most important statement the Minister made in his reply, by a long way, was his comment that to the best of his knowledge, and I presume he would know being the Minister, there is not a legal impediment to having a pay cap, which he might set at €100,000. He could maintain his ban on pay increases and bonuses for people earning above this level, including those on €500,000 a year. There is no legal impediment the Minister is aware of. This completely undermines the argument made in the Dáil yesterday by the Taoiseach that it was about those on low and middle pay and bank workers fundamentally. It is in my eye, as is pretty clear from the comments of the Minister. He gave us examples of people on €49,000 a year or less and €75,000 a year. Even with the extreme example he gave of a €26,000 bonus for a person on €75,000, 99.95% of the people in the categories mentioned would be covered in a scenario such as that which I have explained.

As for the issue of variable pay, I am open to a discussion about it but it is not the fundamental issue. What is fundamental is basic pay. That is the issue. I welcome the comment the Minister made on the need to tackle insufficient pay in the banking sector. I hope the State will use its shares in two of the three big banks to push for and try to ensure that bank workers have pay justice and decent pay. I have not seen too much evidence of it to date. If this is a change of policy on the part of the Minister, I would welcome it.

It is not necessary to lift the €500,000 pay cap or the heavy taxation on the €20,000 bonus for those at the very top to sort out the bank workers on low and middle pay. It is not necessary to insult working people in this country. The Minister's decision is an insult to working people and hard-pressed families who are scraping the euros together to ensure their children have a decent Christmas this year in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. Their hearts are broken every Friday evening when they come out of the supermarket and see by how much the basket of goods has increased over the previous week, let alone the previous month or several months ago. The Minister is giving the green light for big pay increases for people on €500,000 a year, the top 1% in our society.

I note the comments the Minister made yesterday. They were important and it is important that attention is drawn to them. This is very much linked to the question of privatisation. The Minister has made the point that Bank of Ireland is in private ownership and it has the green light to shoot above the €500,000. The other two banks are still in majority public ownership so they do not yet have the green light. The Minister's hope is that AIB will become majority private in the new year and it would then have the green light. It is logical that those who are against these bonuses for bankers, which by the way was the policy the former British Prime Minister Liz Truss and her Chancellor Mr. Kwarteng tried to introduce in their budget, also oppose the privatisation of the banks the Minister is pushing for and are in favour of maintaining the banks in public ownership.

I note the argument the Taoiseach made in the Dáil yesterday, that the market demands that you pay higher rates for the bank executives and so on. Why is that argument not used for our nurses or teachers? A teacher or a nurse can go abroad, get higher rates of pay and have a better standard of living but the Government does not argue that if we want to retain our nurses or teachers we have to increase the rates of pay significantly. It is the line of argument that is being put forward on the top banking executives but let us see if it is the line of argument that is made on the pay of teachers and nurses over the next while.

I ask the Minister to comment on the following point. I accept that the Minister does not have a legal obligation to put his proposal on bankers' pay and bonuses to a vote of the Dáil. He has a moral responsibility to do so, however. The mood of people and society is one of strong opposition to this. My office got a lot of contact on this yesterday and I am not the only Deputy who has had that experience. If the Government has the courage of its convictions on this issue and believes it is the right thing then it should do the right thing and put it to a vote in the Dáil. We will see the colour of the money of the Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green Party Deputies, and of the Independent Deputies who prop them up. I ask the Minister to comment on that.