Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Government has made perfectly clear its view about bonus payments. People in these positions are very well paid to do a job. Bonus payments are inappropriate, and the Government has made that statement very clearly. The Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, was informing the chairs of the boards officially by letter to ensure there would be under no misunderstanding about what is involved in respect of bonuses. What the Minister, Deputy Noonan, pointed out is in the context of what the Government is doing in this respect, which is making decisions that will enable us to be in charge again of our own economic affairs and deal with the underlying problems in the Irish economy, make decisions about the banks and about creating a jobs stimulus and a jobs initiative, and deal with finding out the truth of the scale of what must be done in respect of closing this country's deficit.

People throughout Ireland want this issue to be concluded, and every one of them is prepared to contribute. In that sense they want to see that there is fairness in the system. The Government is setting out its position in so far as fairness is concerned where exceptionally large bonuses have been paid to well-paid people while at the other end of the scale it has had to resort to renegotiating the troika agreement to reverse the cut in the minimum wage brought about by the previous Government affecting the lowest paid workers in our society.

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