Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

I am sure the Tánaiste's eyes watered, as mine did, when he read reports that bonus payments to the tune of €925,000 had been received by executives at Anglo Irish Bank. While I accept the payments were not made on his watch, one individual at the bank is due to receive a payment of €51,000. I am sure that, like me and everyone else in the country, the Tánaiste is mystified at how individuals in an institution that has driven the State to the brink can be due bonus payments. I want to know, first, what the Government will do about that individual payment and, more broadly in regard to Anglo Irish Bank, how 22 of the 50 senior people who were employed in the bank at a time when it was at the height of its dangerous casino capitalism can remain there, and how 19 of those can receive salaries in excess of €175,000. After all, this is now a nationalised bank, although toxic and the root of many of our evils. How is it that people can receive these salaries and what will the Government do about it? In the same vein, developers in NAMA are pocketing €200,000. As the Tánaiste and leader of the Labour Party, how can Deputy Gilmore preside over a scenario where people who made a material contribution to the damage done to this State and the wrecking of our economy can walk away with such big salaries while people on low wages are suffering?

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