Ryan criticises business income disparity

EXECUTIVE PAY:MINISTER FOR Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Eamon Ryan attacked excessive levels of executive pay and corporate greed at the annual economic policy conference in Kenmare, Co Kerry, this weekend.

"When you have a CEO that is paid 100 times the pay of the worker at the teller desk, that undermines the very social cohesion you need to make the economy work efficiently," Mr Ryan said.

"Some of the bonus structures and incentives, and I don't want to criticise any individual, but the ethos set by them is 'greed is good, get whatever you can for yourself', and that has undermined the markets." The markets would have to change to serve the needs of society, rather than the other way around, he added.

Rather than continuing to argue about whether the recession was the result of domestic or international factors, "we should move on from that by saying it was both", he told an audience of economists, policy makers and business figures on Saturday evening.

"We can't spend our whole time looking back and regretting actions that were taken in the last 10 to 15 years," he said. "My only regret is that inappropriately low interest rates turned some of its [ the Irish economy's] success into excess."

The Government's role was to restore confidence, the Minister said. On tomorrow's budget, he warned of "turbulent and difficult times" ahead.

"If you have a financial problem, you are best to take it out and deal with it rather than leave it in the drawer."

Addressing the conference about economic transition to a low-carbon Ireland, Mr Ryan said he did not want a short-term economic contraction to derail the economy from its aim to reduce carbon emissions.

He criticised economic thinking on transport over the past decade and said that he believed it would be seen as "prehistoric and wrong" in five year's time.

"People will say 'what were you doing spending €2.5 billion on roads and a third of that on public transport? Could you not see that there was going to be an oil crisis?'

"I have to say that I have a real problem with some of the economic analysis of transport infrastructure in this country in the last 10 years.

"Why have they not included carbon in the analysis?"

Jack Short, secretary general of the OECD's international transport forum, said a reduction in carbon emissions would be driven by technological advances rather than changes in behaviour among consumers and businesses.

He cited data indicating a possible trebling of global air passenger traffic and freight container traffic by 2025 and a doubling of car ownership by 2050.

Mr Ryan questioned whether this would be possible on the basis of depleting energy resources.