Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

Will the Minister clarify, or perhaps correct, something the Tánaiste told us yesterday? When I asked her about this yesterday, she effectively said that the inclusion of the bonus as part of salary was recommended by the review body on higher level remuneration. She told us the review body on higher level remuneration indicated that the bonus was indicatively part of the salary and, therefore, that justified the way in which the Minister and the Government handled it.

I have looked through the review body report and it says nothing of the kind - in fact, it clearly says the reverse. It makes clear that the Government had already decided that performance-related awards should be abolished and, therefore, the recommendations which it made in respect of the pay of this grade of civil servant had already taken that into account.

The Government has been justifying what it did by suggesting that the review body had somehow recommended that the bonus and basic pay should be consolidated for these purposes but it did not say anything of the kind. Will the Minister for Finance clarify that point?

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