Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

There is much in this amendment which is important and deserves consideration. We have acknowledged at length in this discussion that there has been a casino culture in some banks and we are all dealing with the consequences of that now. The compensation packages that have been created have contributed to that.

There are two elements in this amendment which are worthy of discussion and a response from the Minister. The first element relates to the incomes some of these people receive. I have no issue if someone capable of leading a huge business enterprise is paid hundreds of thousands of euro or millions of euro. However, if there is an industry where the average income of everyone participating in it is around that mark, then there is something wrong. That is the case in many of the banks about which we are talking. Some of them are in Ireland while some are not.

People in bank departments are being paid a lot of money and the conditions in which that money is released are all about what they deliver in the short term or what happens in a quarter or in a half year. That places a focus on the short-term gain which undermines the long-term health of our banking institutions.

That said, we must picture the circumstances in which we would view the chief executives of some of these banks. If a bank was in a situation where it had to receive State support, it would be a bank in significant financial difficulty. More than likely, we would require a change in its management and a new leader with the talent and ability to lead the bank out of its difficulties. It is plausible that to get that talent we need to pay more than the Minister of Finance is paid. Although some of the banks are staffed abundantly with poor talent and poor decisions have been made, there are many good and able people within the industry. We will need to retain them for the long-term health of the banking industry. The suggestion made by Senator O'Toole is a far more realistic way of moving forward. We cannot allow ourselves to end up in a position where suitable leaders for our banks will be turned away because of a cap on salaries that is unrealistic for the type of people we need to run the banks.