Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

What is sick is to pretend to people that one can solve this problem by taking out everyone on a salary of €100,000, putting them up against a wall and doing what the Deputy's former comrades used to do to them. That is sick, in a circumstance in which the great majority of people who work in the public service are not on that kind of money. If one is serious about dealing with this fiscal problem, which with respect I suspect the Deputy is not, one must address expenditure and taxation at the same time. The point the Deputy ignores is there has been inequality of contribution, in that those at the very top of have seen pay cuts of up to 30% in some circumstances, those in the middle have seen pay cuts of approximately 15% and those at the bottom have seen pay cuts of 5% or 6%. The same pattern is replicated on the pension side but the Deputy does not recognise that.

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