Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I put it to the Tánaiste that the situation with the pay and pensions of both current and former bankers and bank executives in this country gives new meaning to the words "bank robbery". This is being done in the face of ordinary citizens who are raging about the fact that they have been battered with unemployment, health and education cuts, savage cuts to their incomes and cuts to vital services for vulnerable sectors of society. They find there is a golden circle of bankers who are super-paid. People who are responsible for getting us into this crisis are walking away with pensions of hundreds of thousands of euro while members of the political establishment that was responsible for presiding over the crisis are walking away with pensions of far more than €100,000 per year. Members of the existing Cabinet will also walk away with pensions of more than €100,000 per year in many cases at the end of this Dáil.

What will the Tánaiste do about this? Will he continue to hide behind legalistic talk about contractual obligations, which is just an excuse to cover the fact that there appears to be no political will to go after these people and to address this gross inequality? The Government could simply impose a super-levy on pensions over €100,000 per year and, in fact, on all incomes over €100,000 per year. Why does it not do that? A 10% levy on all incomes over €100,000 per year would yield €2 billion extra in taxes and do away with the need for all the attacks on working people, the poor and the vulnerable. Why does the Government not do that and address this injustice?

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