MOST SERVING politicians in receipt of ministerial pensions, including former taoiseach Bertie Ahern, agreed yesterday to give them up.
Mr Ahern wrote to the Department of Finance yesterday evening agreeing to “gift” his €83,426 a year pension back to the State. Former ceann comhairle Dr Rory O’Hanlon did the same with his pension of over €40,000 not long afterwards.
Their decisions followed a day of growing political pressure in which all of the Fine Gael and Labour Party TDs in receipt of ministerial pensions agreed to give them back.
Their action followed the controversy that led to Ireland’s EU commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn giving up her ministerial and Dáil pensions worth €108,000 a year.
During the course of yesterday, 16 of the 21 serving politicians still in receipt of ministerial pensions agreed to hand them back. Ireland West MEP Pat “Cope” Gallagher said that he was not going to be forced into making a “kneejerk” reaction.
A number of leading politicians including Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny, Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore and former Fianna Fáil minister Mary O’Rourke voluntarily gave up their entitlements last year.
Pressure on politicians still drawing pensions mounted yesterday in the wake of Máire Geoghegan-Quinn’s decision.
Senior Fianna Fáil sources expressed confidence last night that the remaining five party politicians still in receipt of ministerial pensions - Mr Gallagher and fellow MEP Liam Aylward, Senator Terry Leyden, and TDs Jim McDaid and Noel Treacy - would agree to hand them back. Such a move would make proposed Opposition legislation redundant.
Earlier, Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny announced that they would sponsor legislation to end such pensions in the current Dáil, despite the Government’s claim that it is legally prohibited from doing so.
The remaining TDs in both Opposition parties still drawing pensions agreed to hand them back. Former Labour Party leader Ruairí Quinn, with a pension of €41,656, and former Fine Gael leader Michael Noonan, with €39,944, were the largest Opposition recipients.
When the Dáil met, Mr Kenny challenged the Taoiseach to accept his party’s Bill to immediately terminate the payment of ministerial pensions to serving members of the Oireachtas. “My challenge to the Taoiseach is to accept the Fine Gael Bill and thereby put an end to this practice for once and for all, in the interests of all concerned.”
The Taoiseach said the Attorney General’s advice was that it would be illegal to simply abolish ministerial pensions for serving politicians.
“I have made, and continue to make, the point that one cannot abolish property rights,” said Mr Cowen, who added that it was for each individual to consider if they wished to make a contribution in the light of the economic situation.
Shortly after the Dáil exchanges, Mr Ahern sent his letter “gifting” his pension to the State. Later, Cork TD Ned O’Keeffe also announced that he was giving up his pension of €6,810.
Last night, Mr Kenny attacked the Taoiseach for his handling of the pension controversy, saying that he had abdicated all responsibility.
“Rather than deal with the issue head on, he hid behind threadbare legal arguments and refused to speak directly to his Fianna Fáil colleagues and ask them to give up the pension payment. It is this type of hands-off, no-can-do attitude that has contributed over the years to the political and economic mess in which we now find ourselves as a country,” he said.
Mr Kenny said that the Taoiseach was simply refusing to take responsibility for issues that were of real importance to the ordinary taxpayer.