Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

Both Deputy Gilmore and I have asked whether the Bacon report will be published in full. A short report has been published by the European Commission outlining the reasons for the success of the Swedish banking bail-out. There are six or seven critical reasons the Swedish scheme worked, the first of which is transparency in terms of the amounts involved. The Minister used the word "tough" in regard to some of these loans. I imagine some of these tough developers will not know whether to laugh or cry when they read tonight about this arrangement.

The Labour Party welcomes, in so far as they go, the proposals to curtail Deputies' and Senators' expenses and, in particular, the suggestion that Deputies who have been Ministers will no longer receive pensions. The Taoiseach will be aware that Deputy Gilmore and I surrendered our pensions to the Minister for Finance some time ago. We also proposed that top salaries in Government, Government agencies and Departments be capped at €200,000 for the duration of this financial emergency. This should be done.

The Taoiseach will have seen the international articles and reports in regard to his salary. We are a country of under five million people. I accept the Taoiseach inherited the current situation in terms of remuneration from his predecessor. However, he is up there with Obama, a leader of a major country, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy. If we want the international bond markets to take us seriously we cannot continue to pay people these extraordinary amounts of money. The L'Oreal advertisement "Because I'm worth it" comes to mind. We can no longer afford to pay people these extraordinary amounts of money. The move to address this situation is tepid and disappointing. The Taoiseach and Minister for Finance could have shown leadership today and provided that, for the duration of this emergency, all top salaries would be capped at approximately €200,000. I believe most people in receipt of those salaries would be happy to make that sacrifice, which would not leave them on the breadline as will be the young person under 20 years of age whose social welfare allowance has been reduced from €200 to €100.

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