Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister will be aware of the stark examples of extremely high salaries and pensions. Where any organisation, quarter, public service, banking or insurance company is guilty of salaries and pensions outside the common good, I believe that as a Senator I have to ask the Minister to alter that and to viably do so. If I were to give one simple example it would be the 227 people who work for NAMA and the 962 who work for the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation who between them earn ¤140 million a year. We own NAMA and the IBRC and, as taxpayers, we pay that ¤140 million.

I do not believe in coming into the House and citing examples from The Irish Times, RTE or television programmes. Fintan O'Toole wrote an article last week about there being a sense of powerlessness, and I believe that is what people feel. The Minister will probably have very defined reasons for this and be able to allay many of our fears, but there is a sense of powerlessness around. The question I want to ask is where the expertise is of certain bankers who consider their banks to be commercial entities, yet the Irish people had to put ¤3.7 billion into them to keep them open. One has to ask why these salaries are so high. Are the people who have these salaries any good at what they do bar having downright self-belief and a bullish confidence in power gone mad? There is case for legislating against crude, offensive salaries or else perhaps we should ask the people to put their money elsewhere.

I would like to know how the Minister, in his portfolio of Finance, intends to have the runaway salaries of people who think they are marvellous at what they do controlled in the interests of the people. This is especially important when it comes to taking carers out of homes who play a hugely relevant role, who have a powerful job within our society and who should have equality of job opportunity and equality of salary scale. It has become an enormous issue in this country.