The Taoiseach defended his acceptance of a €38,000 a year pay increase in the Dáil on Tuesday and challenged the media to look into the perks enjoyed by his counterparts in other countries.
"I would invite a member of the media . . . It would not be that hard for them. They could write a glowing article about how poverty-stricken we are against the rest of them," he told the Dáil.
Compared to President Sarkozy of France and other leaders, Mr Ahern said he was not all that well off and he maintained that other leaders had arrangements that were not available to him.
"And it is like a lot of their tax arrangements as well . . . they don't operate the system of transparency . . . they have all kinds of allowances and all kinds of ways of doing it . . . I would like if somebody went to the trouble of putting them all upfront and doing them . . .
"Most of them, not alone have they got their permanent residence, their weekend residence, they have their holiday residence and different rules to us as well where they are the beneficiaries of prolonged holidays and yachts and homes and everything else . . . where they are allowed to do that.
He added: "We don't have those regulations. I don't think we should have those regulations. But I don't think, by comparison, that most of the colleagues you have mentioned wouldn't pay for a cup of tea from one end of the year to the other because they have their catering staff in their homes . . . they have everything else . . . including they can use their jets for any of their social pleasures."
The Taoiseach said he accepted that a very large pay increase, covering a long period, created difficulties but he pointed out that the review body covered a period from 2000 to the present when it should have covered from 2000 to 2004.
Mr Ahern added that the reality was that private-sector grades had increased quite substantially over the past seven years. He had listened to the views of Ictu and others and the Government would take the increase over a two-year period.
He said he would gladly forgo his salary increase to some future date, as had happened before, if he believed it would make a "whit" of a difference.
"It would probably get page 99 in the newspaper if you did that."
