Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

——in revolutionising the direct provision for child care in line with national anti-poverty strategies down the years. Many of the targets were reached. Taking child benefit and the early child care supplement together for children under five, the provision is €3,100 per year. With our proposed changes, it will be €3,000 per year. I do not regard the adjective "punitive" as being appropriate in any way in that respect.

On legislation regarding banks, we have outlined our recapitalisation policy position since Christmas and we have indicated that we stand ready to carry it through. No money has been paid into the banks at this point. Some have spoken of banks being bailed out and billions having been spent on the banks but this has not yet happened. What is envisaged is a support to the banking system on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of businesses and the many hundreds of thousands of people depending on their employment. We must have a functioning banking system to provide lines of credit to Irish business.

We have been indicating that the terms upon which that would be provided would require a coupon to be paid. The Government will be ensuring at all times that we seek to protect any taxpayer investment in respect of any decisions taken by us based on the policies we have already outlined and which the Minister for Finance has described.

With regard to executive remuneration, a committee will report to the relevant Minister in due course on executive remuneration in the banking sector. If there were to be recapitalisation, I would expect the directors' fees to be cut by 25% and I would expect that when they appoint their top executives, there would be an upper limit on remuneration. I would expect that whatever it is at the moment would be cut by at least another 25% as well.

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