The Government made a "wise decision" to defer pay rises for the Taoiseach and his Ministers of 12 to 16 per cent, and handled the issue as well as it could, Minister for Education Mary Hanafin said yesterday.
"I think the Government was right to defer the payment; it was an independent benchmarking body, and in all previous occasions the actual recommendations of such bodies have been accepted," she said.
"But I think in light of current events, the economic situation throughout the world, other benchmarking reports, I think it was a wise decision by the Government."
Ms Hanafin was commenting on the findings of an Irish Times TNS/mrbi poll published yesterday.
This found that 81 per cent of people when asked if they think the Government was right to accept substantial pay increases recommended by a review body, replied that it would be wrong .
Some 11 per cent said they believe it was right, with 8 per cent having no opinion.
Asked if she felt the Government could have handled the matter better, Ms Hanafin told The Irish Times yesterday that when the report came out "naturally any increase like that was going to get critical assessment from the public".
"Because when you think of the salaries that we do get, naturally that kind of increase was going to be criticised by the public.
"But looking in the overall economic situation, and looking in the overall benchmarking situation for other professional bodies, I think this Government handled it as well as we could and the right decision was to defer."