Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

I do not understand why officials in the Department of Finance should be paid more than anybody else in the public service. The figures the Minister read out are pretty staggering even in their reduced form. Will he comment on the fact that officials in the Department, long regarded as the crème de la crème of the public service, are for some extraordinary reason paid more than other officials at the top level elsewhere in the public service? We need a response to that, particularly given media reports over the weekend suggesting that those who had a contrarian view to the predominant view in the Department during the property boom were silenced, their concerns were kept quiet and they were told not to raise them. Those who wished to raise them at a higher level were made to bury them and those who wanted to write articles for the newspapers had to withdraw them. We were paying these people more for results than anybody else in the public service.

See this speech in context