SEANAD REPORT:JOE O'TOOLE (Ind) asked the Minister for Finance to produce the template of the contracts for the AIB bonuses to which we were, apparently, legally bound.

“I don’t believe that they exist. I don’t believe that the proper procedures were followed and I don’t believe that in offering them, they followed the procedures which would be required by good governance of the bank.”

Shane Ross (Ind) said the most disturbing aspect of the bonus fiasco was that AIB and the Government had finally moved in tandem. The Government’s reaction continuously on the banks had been not to take them on but to defend them in the very worst of situations.

David Norris (Ind) said The Irish Timeshad revealed that, far from being compelled to pay these bonuses, the bank had organised their own contract in a rushed fashion. "They frontloaded it, they brought forward the contract and they gave verbal contracts."

Fidelma Healy-Eames (FG) asked for an assurance that the work pressures on the office of the DPP would not hinder the investigation into Anglo Irish Bank and that justice would be done.

Mark Daly (FF), calling for a debate on drug abuse, said there had been a missed opportunity by RTÉ in recent days to highlight the fact that it was unacceptable for illegal drugs such as cocaine to be used by anyone.

He said that along with others he visited schools in Kerry to talk about the dangers of drug abuse, “but when you have a high-profile personality abusing substances such as cocaine, it seems to make it acceptable because the national broadcaster has not come out in any clear way and said, ‘this is not acceptable’. It said ‘leave well enough alone’.”

Marc MacSharry (FF) said those in the Oireachtas needed to highlight the fact that cocaine was not the recreational drug of the super-elite, it was the drug that financed murder on a daily basis throughout this country.