Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin has accused Fine Gael of “rank hypocrisy” over its position on severance payments and pensions for TDs and ministers.
Reports today suggests Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has deferred a €100,000 lump sum payment from his teachers' pension due when he turns 60 in April until he retires from politics, when he will also be entitled to TDs and ministerial pensions.
The Sunday Business Post reported that Mr Kenny would be due a €30,000 pension from teaching on top of his salary as a TD.
Mr Martin said he felt the payments were "wrong" given Fine Gael had levied criticism on outgoing ministers for accepting severance payments.
"I just discovered this morning that Enda Kenny was due this April to get a €100,000 lump sum and €30,000 per annum despite the fact he has only been in the classroom for four years and in other words accumulating rights for 30 years as a TD," he said. "I think that's wrong."
Mr Martin said he was the first minister to forego a severance payment and that Mr Kenny had not done this. "He took a pension for 13 years while he was a TD and yet he is allowed go around the country promoting a new policy this," he told RTÉ Radio's This Week.
"I accuse the Fine Gael party of rank hypocrisy and campaigning around the country on this. They talk the talk but don't walk the walk. Also it was hidden from people. Many other people had to answer questions this in the Dáil and for some strange reasons this has only come about very late in the day."
Mr Martin said he had not resigned from his teaching post in Co Cork since being appointed to the Dail in 1989 but that he did not intend to return to the profession. He said this was because the person substituting for him would lose their job and the school would lose a teacher.
Mr Martin said that he would resign at the end of the academic year because "people are raising the last hair" on the subject with him.
He said he had foregone increments that would have been due to him. "I find it a bit annoying that the one person who has led on this issue, in my own personal way without being asked to do it, gets asked one remaining question while others it seems to me were protected in some shape or form or weren't asked the same questions I have been asked over the last two and three years about this. I think there is an issue there…Everybody should be asked the same questions about entitlements and so on and it doesn't appear to be the case."
Responding to Mr Martin's claims at a Fine Gael rally at the Aviva Stadium this afternoon, Mr Kenny said he will not be accepting any pension from the teaching profession and called on Mr Martin to resign his teaching post tomorrow.
Mr Kenny said he had not taken "one red cent" from his former profession in more than 30 years. "Unlike others, my job was resigned by me and was filled on a fully permanent position by some good teacher in my place," he said.
Mr Kenny called on Mr Martin to resign his teaching post "tomorrow morning". He said he understood the moratorium on public service jobs did not extend to essential frontline positions.
"Just in case anybody has any misunderstanding about this, because my situation was as a former teacher in that profession and simply because I paid into a pension fund, "he said. "In case anybody has any illusions that the leader of the Fine Gael party is anyway involved in a money situation here, I will not be accepting any pension from the teaching profession".
He said he hoped those former teachers leaving the Dail on pensions of €100,000 would think about what they were doing.