John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

At the weekend, everyone woke up to newspaper headlines to the effect that the Minister for Finance cannot tamper with bankers' pay or pensions. These same bankers are benefiting from taxpayers' money which is propping up the banks, but it has also been propping up their individual pensions. If it is the case that the Minister is unable to deal with that issue, he should take time out to read Michael Murray's article in The Sunday Business Post in which he makes a recommendation that we should put a surtax of between 70% and 80% on any of these pensions in excess of ¤150,000. This is very important. I am unsure whether anyone listened to the radio yesterday, but this was followed by David Duffy saying that he would be writing to all of these people to ask them to give up some of their pensions voluntarily. However, it could take between four and five weeks before he will know the answer, by which time the budget will have come and gone.