Paying bankers more will save taxpayers money

It may be politically toxic to remove the salary cap and share option bans, but it is in the country’s best interests to halt the brain drain that’s holding our banks back

Paschal Donohoe: it would be an own goal for him to tackle bank pay rises ahead of an election Picture: Fergal Phillips

On the list of government priorities, the issue of paying bankers more money will rank right at the bottom, below the increasing prospect of an economically disastrous hard Brexit, the housing crisis, cost overruns at the National Children’s Hospital, the saga of the National Broadband Plan and an increasingly wobbly global economy.

There are very few people in government with any bandwidth left for the claims of bankers to end the decade-old ban ...