Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

At higher grades - Secretary General and assistant secretary general level - those were discontinued because 10% of the total pay bill was involved in that situation.

With regard to non-commercial semi-State bodies, the decision on such payments is a matter for the boards themselves and are often built into the contracts of the individuals concerned. As regards those schemes, the Department of Finance wrote to Departments about performance-related payments for chief executives or other senior staff of non-commercial bodies and agencies, indicating it would be appropriate that consideration of bonus payments should be suspended. That remains our position and it will be followed up.

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