Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

Moreover, on 14 occasions Ministers and the Taoiseach have breached their own pay cap to award higher salaries to their special advisers. Just this week we saw the controversy in regard to a former Fine Gael director of communications and now special adviser to the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton. The Taoiseach saw fit to intervene directly to seek this pay rise of €35,000 for a party crony, which is more than the average industrial worker could expect to earn in a year. This is not just a one off. This is a consistent practice of this Government.

The Taoiseach has two special advisers on salaries of €168,000 a year which is more than double the first point of the salary cap his Government set agus déanann siad é seo an fhad is atá ciorruithe millteanacha á ghearradh ar thuistí aonaracha, ar theaghlaigh agus ar dhaoine míchumasaithe. This is cronyism of the most blatant kind. It is hypocrisy. The Taoiseach does this while he imposes savage cuts on lone parents, the disabled and on families.

Under Fine Gael and the Labour Party's watch, a former Secretary General received a golden handshake worth a whopping €713,000, including an annual pension of €142,000. Each time Sinn Féin questions the scandalously high pay and pension arrangements for the top people in the public sector, Ministers excuse it on the basis that they are worth it. Paying off failed senior civil servants with bumper pension pots and plum jobs in Europe is a scandal.

It is Fianna Fáil all over again - massive salaries to Ministers, special advisers, judges, hospital consultants and Secretaries General. However, it is clear none of the protected elites is worthy of such high pay at this time of economic crisis.

Under this Government's watch the tax take is down, the cost of living is increasing, unemployment is rising and Fine Gael and the Labour Party have just extended the failed banking guarantee. On what planet does the Taoiseach think he is worth €200,000 a year? On planet Enda.

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