Eugene Regan (Fine Gael)

I revert to the issue of a cap on the pay of banking executives. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Lenihan attempted to explain the sequence of events regarding the cap on the pay of the new chief executive or managing director of AIB. He said when he was informed of the matter he made no decision on it and, as any Minister for Finance would do in the circumstances, he brought it to the attention of his colleagues in Government yesterday morning. Why does the Minister need to bring a matter to Cabinet in regard to his guidelines, if there are guidelines in place and a cap on the executive pay of bank officials and senior executives? Is it not normal that a Minister, if he is going to take up the time of a Cabinet meeting, would come with a recommendation? It would seem the Minister went to the Cabinet yesterday with recommendations on the person to be appointed as managing director and the pay of €633,000. I find the explanation of the Minister for Finance on how this matter emerged yesterday entirely unconvincing.

I also wish to raise an issue concerning the Department of Transport and the Minister for Transport, Deputy Noel Dempsey, namely, a bus service between Dalkey and the airport. It is a matter which I raised previously in this House. The Patton Flyer is an excellent bus service which was set up in 2007. It applied for a bus licence to operate on the route under the Road Transport Act 1932 but no decision was made on the granting of a licence. We now have a situation whereby another operator has been granted a licence for the same route. Something is not right about this situation and there is skulduggery in the way the Patton Flyer is effectively being run off the road-----