It was the Minister who decided the time is right to remove the €500,000 cap on bankers' pay and restore their bumper bonuses. We are told he needs to do this so we can attract good people and the top talent to run our banks. It seems no self-respecting high-flying banker would want to work for a less than €500,000, as if they could not survive on a salary that is more than double that of the Taoiseach. People are feeling a sense of déjà vu. We have all been here before. We were told just before the financial crash that bankers' pay was so enormous because they were employing the very best. It is worth recalling some of those salaries now. In 2006 the former CEO of Bank of Ireland, Brian Goggin, took home a salary just shy of €4 million. The bank subsequently required a €5 billion bailout from the State. Over in AIB just before the crash its CEO, Eugene Sheehy, was on a more modest €2.5 million per year. At the time AIB said its policy when it came to the pay of its senior executives was to "reinforce a high-performance and ethical culture". Is it any wonder that people are sickened by what the Minister is now doing? We know where that high performance and ethical culture ended up. The State, every man, woman and child in the country, spent €21 billion bailing out AIB. More than a decade later we still own 50% of that bank.

The banks' alleged conversion from Gordon Gekko to sackcloth and ashes is pretty hard to swallow, given their treatment of their customers during the tracker mortgage scandal. This year alone, AIB was fined more than €96 million by the Central Bank for its role in inflicting devastating consequences on almost 13,000 households. Meanwhile Bank of Ireland was hit with a record €100 million fine for its role in the scandal that ruined thousands of lives and resulted in the loss of hundreds of homes. That was just two months ago. As if all of this were not bad enough, lifting these restrictions on bonanza pay and bonuses is especially galling, given the cost-of-living crisis that is decimating the incomes of so many working families and workers generally throughout the country. This decision is an insult to those working families. Where is the evidence that the banks have learned any lessons? Does the Minister believe we need to work to achieve an ethical culture in our banks? How does he propose to prevent a return to the destructive ethic that greed is good in our banks and in wider society?

I will begin with the latter question regarding how we propose to get to a culture that is different to the culture to which the Deputy has referred. It is by the steps this and previous Governments have taken with regard to the regulation of our banks. It is about the changes that are fundamental in nature that have happened in the regulation of the banking sector since those awful years, months and days of the global financial crisis. It is the reason that since 2013, the Central Bank of Ireland has had legislation in place on an enhanced fitness and probity regime. This means those in senior roles in our banking system have to go through a very thorough evaluation process and ultimately require the consent of the Central Bank to fulfil particular roles. It is also the reason we require our banking system to hold a very high level of capital to prevent the destructive, harmful, difficult and traumatic consequences of a decade and a half ago and what banking difficulty can do to the rest of our economy.

We now have a banking sector with a fundamentally different regulatory environment to what we had in the years that led to the financial crisis and banking crisis that afflicted our country. This is not to say for a moment there are still not risks and difficulties, because there are. This is one of the reasons I will bring forward legislation on the senior accountability regime on Report Stage. I hope it will be before Dáil Éireann prior to the Christmas recess. It will put in place a further element regarding how individual accountability in our financial sector can be deepened and enhanced to act as a preventative arm for the very risks the Deputy is speaking about developing and, if they do occur, to make sure we have the ability to sanction individuals in addition to the laws that are already in place to do it.

With regard to the Deputy's comments on the banks themselves and the decision I made, she knows that every cent the State had to put in to support and save Bank of Ireland at that point in time has all been got back along with €2 billion more. The decision we made and that I recommended to the Government on the bank cap only applies to a bank in which the State no longer has a share. Of course I appreciate the sensitivity of this decision, given the public hurt and public emotion that has been caused by all of the issues to which the Deputy has referred. We have only three retail banks left in our country. More than 30 banks are present in the economy. None of them are being subject to the pay cap restraints I made the decision to change, while the banks that employ the most Irish people and hold almost €200 million in deposits of Irish people, are subject to them. There are consequences to this and the Government has made a moderate change recognising the risks and difficulties that are there.

The question is, who in the Minister's ear in terms of advising him on what is an appropriate salary for senior bank officials to be earning? Is he not getting all his advice from insiders and people who have skin in the game? On what basis did he come to the conclusion that paying somebody more than €500,000 a year will achieve a better customer service in our retail banks? On what basis did he come to the conclusion that by paying somebody this grotesque level of income, we would somehow have a more ethical banking system? What is his thinking? The public is finding it very difficult to understand, given the lives that were destroyed, the enormous hardship imposed on so many people in this country and the huge social and economic damage done by our out-of-control banks.

On what basis did the Minister come to the conclusion that this would be good for the country, for Irish business, for banking and, most of all, for the public who have to use our retail banks? What benefits will accrue to ordinary customers and small-scale business people?

I have already answered the Deputy's question. The all-too-real scenario at the heart of the decision the Government contemplated on Tuesday morning is that where a person could be offered a job in either AIB, Bank of Ireland or PTSB, he or she could be looking after the IT systems that are vital to the functioning of our banks. That person will be offered a salary and may even be offered a good salary. However, the vast majority of other banks and organisations will not only match that salary but will offer a bonus and variable pay on top of it. That is the reality in which we are in-----

Not everybody is motivated by money.

-----and the reality I have to a acknowledge in decisions that are being made by the Government. Of course, I have a duty as to how the harm and grave difficulties of the past can be compensated for so those who were hurt and harmed can be recognised in decisions made and that have been made by the over €200 million of fines that have already been levied on our banking sector to deal with the tracker mortgage scandal. In addition to that duty, I also have a duty to allow our banks to compete appropriately with large, international banks in this country, that do not hold our deposits or employ 20,000, and that is the balance the Government is seeking to attain.