Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

An increase of €81,000 is a huge amount of money. We have heard all of these things, such as that this increase is commensurate with the scale of responsibility. How many people never see a salary of €81,000, let alone an increase of €81,000 to €292,000? The issue here and what really angered people is that it was so brazen. An increase of €81,000 is massive and in response to the Minister saying that it is commensurate with the responsibilities, I say there are plenty of people doing very serious jobs for half the amount of the increase that has been granted for the position in question. In hindsight, having heard the public reaction and how outraged people are, the Minister would surely agree that an €81,000 increase is outrageously high. We are now seeing that there is a person who is willing to do the job and waive the €81,000 increase. Would the Minister agree that the €81,000 increase was not needed in the first place?

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