MINISTER for Finance Brian Lenihan criticised the “begrudgery” towards the decision to cut the Taoiseach’s salary by €14,000, the Tánaiste’s by €11,000 and Ministers’ pay by €10,000.

Mr Lenihan said he could not let that begrudgery go unchallenged.

“Let me be clear, governing this country is a difficult and complex job, both in good times and in the very bad times we are experiencing now. Those who do carry out these tasks in the public interest should have an appropriate payment for it.”

Mr Lenihan was introducing legislation to give effect to those cuts and to the €1 drop in the minimum wage to €7.65 along with the 4 per cent reduction in public sector pay.

He also said that a number of departmental secretaries general whose salary would otherwise have exceeded the Taoiseach, have volunteered to take an additional reduction in their pay to bring them into line with Brian Cowen’s salary.

Mr Lenihan hit out at some sections of the media that promoted the view, he said, that “no public servant, including office holders, should be paid a salary that reflects the burdens of their jobs”.

Fine Gael spokesman Michael Noonan said no government would have moral authority, after introducing cuts in payments to blind persons, carer’s allowance, widows’ pensions and allowances to the disabled, if they had not touched their own pay.

The pay of TDs, he said, had been cut by 28 per cent in the past two years.

It was not correct, as the public seemed to believe because it had not been included in the Minister’s speech, that TDs were unaffected by the Budget.

A new PRSI rate of 4 per cent would apply to the pay of all TDs, and, when this was taken with the decision already made to abolish increments to those who had qualified for them, the loss would be about €10,000.

“Some deputies, if elected to the next Dáil, will certainly receive €10,000 less than they are receiving at present after the cuts,” he added.

“There are issues here as well, and I wonder what the future generation of deputies will do.”

Current take-home pay seemed to be about €4,000 monthly for TDs, depending on their tax, said Mr Noonan.

“If another €10,000 per annum is taken out in March or April, after the general election, they will be going home with €3,200 or €3,300, which seems tight enough for deputies with families at expensive ages in secondary school and for whom they will need to pay fees in university,” he added.

“I am not beating my own drum: thank God, my adult children are now self-sufficient and are off the payroll for the time being at least.

“However, I know many of my colleagues have very heavy personal expenses.”

Last week, said Mr Noonan, one of his colleagues had to meet about 300 pensioners, who challenged him on his pay.

“He produced a payslip from his pocket, and they were absolutely amazed that a gross salary of approximately €8,000 ended up being slightly less than €4,000 in his case,” he added.

“There was no more argument when he showed it around. He advised a group of us that we should never go out without a payslip in our pockets.”