Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Senator should not discount the strength of moral pressure and the strength of what he is doing today. AIB's board took this very seriously, wrote to their retired executives who had very high pensions and asked them to make a contribution to the State. One individual has made a very big contribution and has taken a reduction in his pension. I would advocate that all others who can see the public anger, as expressed by their representatives, do likewise. Therefore, we will do that in the first instance.

The second thing I will do is to continue my conversations with IBRC to see if it will comply with the request I made, which I thought was reasonable.

Third, when I get the report into remuneration across the covered institutions, which I will have by the end of the year, I will open discussions with all parties to advance this issue. This is work in progress, however, which I cannot resolve in one fell swoop by introducing a simple piece of legislation. Nonetheless, we have already made considerable progress in reducing costs across banks and in clawing back some of the outrageous contractual arrangements which were made with these individuals by the previous Government. We will continue to do so.