Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The Deputy is suggesting that if we did not have advisers we would not have to implement measures such as pay cuts. That is nonsense. We have a serious budgetary crisis that must be dealt with on both the pay side and the non-pay side. It is unfortunate. I would rather we did not have to consider such proposals, but we did. Such measures had to be taken. I am simply telling the Deputy that they are progressive and that those on lower wages are being asked to pay less. Ideally, we would like to be in a position to exempt low-paid people, but it is not possible to obtain savings of that magnitude from the public service pay bill when so many public servants are on salaries of €50,000 or less. The idea that we could find the money somewhere else and make up €1 billion from the public service pay bill in some other way is not feasible.

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