Health

Shane Ross suggests committee was ‘knowingly misled’ by former CRC chief

Paul Kiely’s pension package was ‘many miles away’ from what Public Accounts Committee was told last month, says Independent TD

Paul Kiely: told the committee in December that his lump sum was €200,000. Photograph: Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland

Pamela Duncan
Sat Jan 18 2014 - 01:00


Speaking at the Public Accounts Committee, Shane Ross suggested the committee had been "knowingly misled" by former chief executive of the Central Remedial Clinic Paul Kiely as regards his pension package when he appeared before it on December 11th.

Mr Ross made his comments on Thursday after the committee heard the text of a letter written by the interim administrator of the clinic, John Cregan, to the director general of the HSE, Tony O'Brien.

The letter stated that “in his final salary payment from the CRC in June 2013”, Mr Kiely received a €200,000 tax-free payment and €273,336 in a taxable payment.

An additional €268,689 was paid to a pension administrator “to ensure that Mr Kiely’s pension/lump sum benefits would not be less than if Mr Kiely had continued to remain on as chief executive until November, 2016”.

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Mr Ross described the pension package as set out by Mr Cregan as “many miles away from what the committee was told” when Mr Kiely appeared before it in December.

“It appears that at its meeting of December 11th last, this committee was misled about the terms of the pension awards to Mr Paul Kiely. It was certainly misled by omission, and I suggest it was knowingly misled.”

At the December meeting when asked by Gerald Nash if he was given a lump sum payment when he stepped down from the organisation, Mr Kiely replied: “Yes, I was.”

Asked what that sum was, Mr Kiely said, “It was €200,000”, which he said was “calculated at the maximum amount allowable by the Revenue Commissioners”.

Asked by Mr Nash if he had put a value on his “entire pension pot”, Mr Kiely replied: “I do not know what that is.”

When it was put to him by Mr Nash that, when stepping down from an organisation, it would be “human nature” to take some interest in what one’s future pension would be, Mr Kiely replied: “I think the future pension will probably be around €90,000.”

“So the pension will be approximately €90,000 in perpetuity?” Mr Nash asked, to which Mr Kiely replied yes.

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