Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

This morning RTE reported that the Government is considering relaxing the cap on bankers' pay to facilitate a huge salary for the new Bank of Ireland chief executive officer. The cap is already set at €500,000, yet Bank of Ireland has now stated such a cap places it at a competitive disadvantage. It is worth noting that last year alone, Mr. Boucher's total package was €958,000, nearly €1 million. Huge salaries far above the €500,000 cap were paid while the banking fiasco played out. We were told repeatedly that if one pays peanuts, one gets monkeys. Therefore, we paid the exorbitant salaries to the experts, who fiddled while Rome burned and the people were left to pick up the pieces.

The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, has himself said that because the Government now holds a stake of only 14% in Bank of Ireland, it can be more flexible regarding pay. Are we now about to make the same mistake again by proceeding with the sale of AIB shares and further losing control of a sector that cost billions of euro and tore the social fabric out of this country?

AIB is 99.9% State-owned. The money we pumped into it is not the Taoiseach's or mine; it belongs to the people across this country, not just this generation but also generations to come. They deserve to know that any decision taken on AIB will not be informed by some arbitrary decision by the Taoiseach or by the Minister, Deputy Noonan, based on the same advice or the advice of some of the experts and consultants who stood on the sidelines cheering the boom, many of whom have benefitted considerably in advising on how to handle the wreckage of the bust.

It was heralded recently that the Government is considering a sizeable AIB share sale. I now read that Goodbody Stockbrokers has been appointed along with familiar names such as JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Davy, among others. They have been appointed until July 2018. It appears that the Taoiseach expects the sale to proceed almost unnoticed. Have we learned nothing from the mistakes of the past? A share sale means losing control and losing control means a return to the same banking model that got us into trouble in the first place. The salary fiasco in Bank of Ireland is a prime example. Surely the Taoiseach recognises that a decision of such magnitude should be taken by democratic means and is not a simple matter for a minority Government to make.

It is a matter for the people and, as such, no such sale should even be contemplated without at least majority support. The Social Democrats have tabled a motion on the Order Paper to that effect. Will the Taoiseach commit to producing a full cost-benefit analysis regarding any proposed share sale of AIB clearly laying out the benefits of a share now, at a future or not at all? Will he make public the findings of that cost-benefit analysis and will he guarantee that no decision will be taken on any AIB share sale until at least there is a vote in the Dáil?

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