Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

I tabled amendments Nos. 3a and 3b.

There is much we could say about this Bill. It has been described as a technical Bill in one sense but it provides for what is potentially one of the most momentous decisions that will ever be taken by the Oireachtas in our time. The Government is about to commit the people's money, in the form of the National Pensions Reserve Fund, to recapitalise AIB and Bank of Ireland.

We, in Sinn Féin, have repeatedly called on the Minister to use the National Pensions Reserve Fund in productive investment projects to ensure that we get the country back to work and that the social services for which the people are crying out are delivered.

Only today I highlighted the fact that the Minister for Education and Science, even after a year of posing the original question, still does not have a clue how many schools are using prefabs in this State. He does not have a clue how many schools have got planning permission and can move to the next stage. He does not know. The Taoiseach and the Government are willing to work through the night into the early hours of the morning to bail out the banks and to secure high pay and bonuses for bank executives and senior managers who have been reckless, but when it comes to our children they are not willing to bail them out of classrooms that are falling down and prefabricated buildings that are in a terrible state, some of which date back 40 or 50 years. That is where some of the problem lies in terms of the Government's priorities in this Bill.

One of the problems is that the amendments being put forward, and those that were put forward by my colleague, Deputy Morgan, in the Dáil, are not being accepted by the Government. They are falling on deaf ears. They are responsible amendments, amendments that the majority of people would like to see implemented. They deal with proper reporting, proper procedures and ensuring that those who continue to rip off the country will not be favoured by the Government at a time when it is attacking the most vulnerable, the most weak and the poorest in society. I urge the Minister of State to accept and listen carefully to the proposals that we have tabled.

We all know that there was a drug in banking society, but also in the elite in Irish society, which was based on profit, bonuses and a merry-go-round that they thought would never end, and they are holding the rest of us, the workers of the country, to ransom. All this was based on irresponsible borrowing by the banks and it locked the Irish financial system into a cycle which, as my party previously highlighted in this Chamber and in the Dáil, could only end in disaster.

It was not the case that nobody shouted stop. Sinn Féin shouted stop but the problem was that the Government was not prepared to listen. The people are now paying the price for that rampant irresponsibility by bankers, developers and the Government, which failed to listen and to take action, and which will commit to put every man, woman and child in the State into debt, increase their taxes and increase the pain so that those who got us into this difficulty continue to be bailed out.

Both of the amendments I tabled deal with executives, senior managers and employees of financial institutions that are availing of these funds. Amendment No. 3a proposes that executives, employees and senior managers of these banks should not be paid more than a Minister.

If I go back to Donegal and tell the people that I proposed an amendment that bank officials would receive over €250,000, they would probably lynch me because we should be going much further. My party would go much further but, as I stated initially, this is in light of the fact that the Government is not willing to take decisive action and is not willing to rein in those who were responsible and reckless in the financial institutions. It is a compromise amendment, but it is linked to ministerial salaries, which, with the salaries of Deputies and Senators, should also be cut substantially.

I ask that the Minister of State accept this amendment. I predict that he will speak of further reports, further discussions and further strategic or scientific analysis, but the reality is nobody needs a report to tell us that a senior bank official should not earn €3 million per year. Nobody needs a report to tell us that bonuses in the region of millions of euro per year should not be paid to these people who trapped the Irish people into borrowing vast amounts, who are now repossessing their homes and treating them shabbily and who have completely restricted financial lending to small and medium enterprises. There is a need for this amendment.

My second amendment deals with the bonuses that have accrued by executives within these financial institutions over the past three years. In this amendment my party proposes that all bonuses collected as part these people's remuneration in the financial institutions over the past three years be paid back to the State. As I stated, some of these executives received millions of euro in bonuses per year over those three years.

A question needs to be asked and I know the answer to it. Did those people earn that money? Did they deserve that money? We cannot reward people who exploited the Irish economy and who put us into this disaster. We speak about it — we heard it from the Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis — being as bad as Cromwell. Would the Minister of State pay Cromwell a couple of million euro per year? Would he pay him huge bonuses? If the Minister of State does not accept this amendment he is allowing the people who put us in this position to continue earning vast amounts of money.

One must remember the important aspect of this. After this Bill passes, which no doubt it will, it is the Irish people, the taxpayers, the mothers and fathers who sent their children to special needs classes, which were taken away by the Government two weeks ago so that they are now in mainstream classes, who are paying these executives their bonuses and wages. It is the woman who is lying on a trolley in an accident and emergency department who is paying these executives their bonuses and their millions of euro in wages. The people demand that the Government take action and I put forward these amendments to ensure action is taken. The people will reward the Government if action is taken, however belatedly. It is never the wrong time to do the right thing.