Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Question 89: To ask the Minister for Finance if, in view of the recent salary cap, he supports the position that a person who is in receipt of a substantial salary from a commercial semi-State body is also being paid additional fees by virtue of being a public interest director on the board of AIB and would be in receipt of further additional payments for serving on the board's remuneration sub-committee; and if he supports the double and treble pay for a key State employee. [20518/11]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that the individual in question was nominated to be a public interest director by my predecessor under the provisions of the Credit Institutions (Financial Support) 2008 legislation and was subsequently appointed by AIB to their board in accordance with the rules and regulations for such appointments with effect from 22 January 2009. Eleven other public interest directors were likewise nominated and appointed in a similar fashion to the respective boards of the covered institutions around that time. These public interest directors were nominated by my predecessor on the basis of the Minister's assessment of their civic mindedness and sense of where the public interest lies to inform their view of what was in the institution's interest.

Paragraph 32 of the above Scheme stipulated that the covered institutions would remunerate these posts and that continues to be the position. The Deputy may wish to note that following the recent mergers involving EBS & INBS that six public interest directors now remain in office. The Deputy will be aware that, not withstanding the large State shareholding, the respective covered institutions have been and continue to be run at arms length from the Government in relation to operational matters. Details for the relevant years - up to 2010 - of the fees payable to all public interest directors are available in the Annual Reports of the respective bodies.