Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have the unedifying spectacle of a Minister coming in to extoll the benefits of the previous Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Act in 2009 and 2010 when he viciously and vociferously opposed it on purely populist grounds at the time. We in Fianna Fáil acknowledge that the public pay bill must be tackled but we believe it should be done in the fairest possible way. Those previous pay cuts were very fair.