Almost 1.5 million people have salaries of less than the €38,000 pay rise recently granted to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.
In figures released by Labour TD Ciaran Lynch in a Dáil question this week, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen said that the estimated number of earners on the income tax records in 2006 earning gross income of €38,000 was 1,452,000.
It emerged last month that the Taoiseach is to receive a pay rise of more than €38,000, bringing his salary to €310,000 per year, after a report of the Review Body on Higher Remuneration that was accepted by the Cabinet.
Senior civil and public servants, semi-State chief executives, judges, the heads of universities and the Garda Commissioner will also see their pay increase significantly under the review.
Mr Lynch said the the Taoiseach's pay rise had "quite rightly come under sustained criticism. . . . €38,000 is not a pay increase: it is a salary," he added.
"Unlike the Taoiseach, people earning such a salary are all too often slaves to their mortgages; over borrowed to meet the demands of day to day living; overworked dealing with the increasing cost of living, overcharged for childcare, and overstretched and stressed in trying to afford to buy a home."
