Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is two minutes each.

I would like to put this particular agreement in the context of what I witnessed today, which was a meeting of the Bank of Ireland AGM where a great deal of public money is going into people's salaries. Unfortunately, the Minister for Finance, on behalf of the Government, voted not just to keep salaries very high but to increase at least one salary. The new governor of the Bank of Ireland was not given €394,000 per annum as was given to his predecessor, which is about €8,000 per week, but a package of €492,000 per annum, which is almost a 25% increase on the governor's pay last year. One could not help feeling sympathy and that there was justice in any resistance from a public servant today when they see themselves being asked, on comparatively very low pay, to make a very substantial sacrifice when the same Government is prepared to stand over excessive and obscene pay and to allow it increase in other areas.

I have an uneasy feeling about these centralised agreements, and I have an uneasy feeling about Croke Park II because only 45% of SIPTU, the biggest union, voted. That means only one in five of those people followed their union's and their leader's call.

See this speech in context