Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has insisted high earners in State agencies will have to suffer financial pain along with everyone else.
His comments came after the chief executive of the Dublin Airport Authority Declan Collier announced yesterday he would forego a bonus of €106,000.
The company had awarded the deferred bonus to Mr Collier for 2010 despite a Government ban on bonuses for semi-State bosses.
Mr Gilmore said he was pleased Mr Collier had backed down over the deferred payment.
“We want everybody to make their contribution to the way in which this country has to get out of its difficulties and that includes people who are on the highest levels of earnings and it includes people who have up to now been in receipt of bonuses,” he said. “The Government’s position in relation to bonuses has been very well known for some time.”
Taoiseach Enda Kenny also said everybody in society needed to make a contribution.
“I would like to see the chief executives of semi-state bodies understand this message clearly,” Mr Kenny said.
“Our people are in a challenging position. Everybody from the highest paid needs to make their contribution and play their part in this.”
Earlier, Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar said the Government intended to review the awarding of bonuses in semi-State bodies.
Mr Varadkar had threatened not to reappoint the board of the DAA when its term expires later this year for defying guidelines on pay for senior public servants.
Mr Varadkar’s demand that the board should not pay the bonus had already resulted in the resignation of chairman David Dilger.
Speaking this morning, Mr Varadkar noted that authority's profits to date were "not sufficient" for the State-owned airport operator to cover debt repayments over the next seven years.
The Dublin-based company, which manages Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports, has a debt of approximately €750 million, most of which must be repaid by 2018, he said.
Mr Varadkar said the authority's climbdown showed the Government was serious about ending bonus payments.
The Minister said stricter criteria would be applied to bonus payments in all State agencies and stressed he wanted semi-State boards "who were willing and able to accept Government policy".
Mr Varadkar added he would be looking for a 15 per cent reduction in pay from chief executives of semi-State companies in the future.
He said the Government had sought advice on whether it could use the same legislation recently used to reduce the salaries of ministers and other public servants for semi-State company bosses, but been advised this was not possible.
"We were told we couldn't use the legislation to apply to CEO's because it was too small a number (of people) to constitute a financial emergency," he said. "Our initial preference was to impose the reductions now by force of law but the advice from the Attorney General was that we couldn't do that which is why we're seeking a voluntary reduction now," he told RTÉ's Morning Ireland.