Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I understand. There is very little time for Committee Stage and we would have welcomed more time for that tonight. However, in this legislation there is a separate section referring to the chairman of An Bord Pleanála and another one relating to the Ombudsman. That is targeting a very narrow and specific group of people, but I do not believe those sections will be subject to constitutional challenge because they only apply to one person. I do not accept, therefore, that the Minister can respond to the measure I propose relating to the chief executives of semi-State companies by saying it cannot be permitted because it targets a small group of people. He is already targeting smaller groups and individual categories of employment in this Bill.

A number of the chief executives of semi-State companies have taken the voluntary waiver to bring their salaries below €250,000. The legislation should cover them because, when things pick up next year, they might not take the waiver and return to their high salaries again. I hope the Minister will take that point into account. I look forward to him dealing with these matters in more detail at the committee meeting tomorrow on public sector issues.

The estimated reduction in public service pensions above €100,000 that has been proposed will potentially affect pensioners who were formerly officeholders such as the President and Taoiseach and other members of the Judiciary. The Minister outlined the list of those affected tonight and I believe it was highlighted on tonight's "Six One News". I welcome and support that. Given that those people paid superannuation and contributed to the pensions they now receive, they have a very strong proprietary right to that asset. The reason we must introduce the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Amendment) Bill is to copperfasten the legislation in targeting those people.

Given that the Minister can target people who have contributed to their pensions, high as they are, and that it is presumably legally safe to do so, I cannot understand why he is not targeting the current salaries of people who are still in the system. Each time he comes to the House he talks about their contractual obligations, but I do not see how the same arrangement does not hold true for pensioners if it applies to people currently employed.

My view is very clear. I challenge the chief executive of the ESB or An Post or Dublin Airport Authority to go to the High Court and try to overturn it. I would welcome it because if I was on the board employing him, I would tell him to get on with his job and not waste his, the company's, the taxpayers' and the court's time. It will only be found to be unconstitutional if somebody goes to court about it. There are many matters that have been agreed in the House and if they were tested in the court, it would be up to the judges to decide, so I would not automatically assume that they would have a cast iron case in court just because the Minister received legal advice that they would.

I urge the Minister to just do this. I believe he has right on his side under the emergency financial measures. The people of Ireland would support him. He should put it up to these people to go down to the courts and challenge what the Oireachtas does. I do not believe the Minister would encounter a challenge. They have a serious job to do and they should not be arguing down in the courts, wasting their and the public's time for their personal gain.

I again stress that my remarks are focused at the very highly paid. The Minister has done a great deal on public sector reform but most of his efforts to date have been concentrated on new recruits. Some of the salaries that have been introduced will not have a major effect on pensions for 40 years, until the people who are recruited in the future retire after 40 years, or it will probably be after 45 years with the retirement age increasing as the years go by. The zeal the Minister has shown in tackling employees who are not yet in the system should be exercised with regard to the high paid people who are currently in the system. Next Monday, the Minister will announce tough measures and I have no wish to see him hitting the lower paid, the poor and people on social welfare while at the same time letting these chief executives off scot free tonight.

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