Top-level pension cuts would show 'fairness'

THE REDUCTION in top-level public service pensions would reinforce the principles of fairness, ability to pay and burden sharing, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin told the Dáil.

“It ensures those in eminent office demonstrate their leadership and, most importantly, their solidarity in a real and concrete way with the burdens faced by those most affected by the economic crisis,” he added.

Announcing a 20 per cent reduction in public service pensions above €100,000, Mr Howlin said it would mean an estimated saving of €400,000 in a full year.

“While the savings are again modest, I believe the measure should be implemented in the broad public interest,” he added.

He pointed out that pensions in excess of €60,000 were currently being adjusted by 12 per cent.

The Minister said the 20 per cent reduction would be achieved by way of an amendment to the Financial Emergency in the Public Interest Act 2010, reducing judicial pay in the aftermath of the recent referendum, which he introduced in the Dáil yesterday.

He said those on a pension of €125,000 would see a cumulative reduction of €13,760 or 11 per cent. Those on €150,000 would see a corresponding fall of €18,760 or 12.5 per cent.

Earlier, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the questions of serious amounts of money being paid in pensions to retired persons was a matter of some importance to the Government.

“It did not start just now, but has been going on for some time,” he said. “In its own small way, I happened to be the first public servant to take a voluntary pay cut and leave aside whatever bits and pieces of pensions I had, including one from a different profession.”

He said there were about 250 people receiving pensions over €100,000, which was the focus of some considerable attention. “There are also other areas where huge amounts are paid every day,” he added.

“The Government will look across the range of these payments.”

Mr Kenny was replying, during Opposition Leaders’ Questions, to Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams, who claimed there were “two Irelands”.

Mr Adams urged the Taoiseach to say the Government would cap public pensions and stop the payments to people still in employment.

Thirty former politicians were earning pensions significantly in excess of €100,000, he added.

Fianna Fáil proposed amendments to bring those already on high salaries down to the cap for new positions of €200,000 in the public service and €250,000 in semi-State bodies.

Party spokesman on public expenditure Seán Fleming said the salaries of the chief executives of the former Anglo Irish Bank and Allied Irish Banks should each be capped at €200,000.

He had found it bizarre, he said, to observe bank executives defer to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan at the Oireachtas finance committee when asked about the banks’ future.

Yet those bank executives were paid more than the Minister and the department’s secretary general.

Sinn Féin spokeswoman on public expenditure Mary Lou McDonald said the salaries contained within the Bill for the judiciary, Government office-holders and the President, remained so far removed from the financial reality facing the State that it beggared belief.

She added: “Tell me, on what planet does an insolvent country award salaries of €226,376 to a chief justice, or €200,000 to a taoiseach, or €210,206 to a High Court judge, and then promote these salary rates as a coup for political reform?”