symbolic gesture, indeed
Enda Kenny volunteers to take a 5% pay cut in some sort of bizarre holier-than-thou attack on the incumbent government, or perhaps attempting to show solidarity with the ordinary man or something. Of course, if I were earning in excess of €100,00 per annum, I figure I could be this magnanimous, too. I had to dig around a bit to find that salary figure, although I'm sure there's an official reference somewhere. All the press reports I've been reading mention the 5% without indicating what it was 5% of; this piece of punditry from the Irish Times reveals that even after the pay cut Enda would still be earning over a hundred grand. Which Payscale suggests is significantly more than the ordinary man. Further silliness ensues: it's not obvious, according to the Times piece, if Kenny can cut his own salary; and despite some mentions to the contrary, it seems that not only are his senior colleagues not following his lead, there's some unrest in the party over the fact that the pay cut appears to have been a unilateral decision on the part of Kenny himself with no consultation with said colleagues. So not just a stupid, empty gesture, but one that puts him at odds with his own party as well.