SCRAPPING PENSION payments to former ministers who are serving TDs, Senators or MEPs would not be permissible under the Constitution, Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has said.
He said the same principles also applied in the case of the pension entitlements of Irish European commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn.
He said the legal advice received from Attorney General Paul Gallagher was that the Government could not strip somebody of the pension they have earned.
“That’s not allowed in our legislation – legally, you can’t do it. If that’s the position, there is nothing that parliament can do short of a referendum on Máire Geoghegan-Quinn’s pension,” Mr Lenihan said on RTÉ yesterday.
In addition to her commissioner’s salary of €238,918, Ms Geoghegan-Quinn was in receipt until yesterday of a combined Dáil and ministerial pension worth €108,000 per year. The provisional 2009 figure for her ministerial pension was €64,281 with her TD’s pension amounting to some €44,000 (she was a TD from 1975 to 1997).
Fine Gael and Labour have both taken issue with this interpretation and have separately argued that there is no constitutional impediment.
According to spokesmen for both parties, the Government could easily introduce legislation to scrap the current system whereby serving parliamentarians get paid ministerial salaries.
Mr Lenihan announced in the emergency budget in April 2009 that the system whereby former ministers in the Dáil and Seanad were paid pensions would be discontinued.
However, the Attorney General gave legal advice to Mr Lenihan that those affected could claim a form of property right and that the reduction in pension had to be proportionate to that imposed on other groups. He instanced professionals providing services to State bodies and Government departments whose fees were reduced by 25 per cent. He said that those being paid the pension could claim that they had a legitimate expectation that it would not be scrapped.
Serving parliamentarians in the Oireachtas and in Brussels are entitled to receive 50 per cent of their pensions. The exceptions are former taoisigh, including Bertie Ahern.
In June last year, the Government reduced the pension payments by 25 per cent of the actual amount paid (or 12.5 per cent of the overall pension entitlement).
Some 32 TDs, Senators and MEPs are entitled to receive ministerial pensions, although 10 have voluntarily forgone their payments. A further 10 Fianna Fáil TDs who have retired as ministers since 2007 have received severance payments and will be entitled to receive pension payments before the end of this Dáil.
From the start of the next Dáil term, no serving member of the Oireachtas will be eligible to receive a ministerial pension.
Speaking yesterday, Mr Lenihan said that it was open to anyone to make a contribution from their pension to the Minster for Finance.
“Many can reflect on the difficulty economic circumstances Ireland is in and decide to assist voluntarily,” he said.
PARLIAMENTARY PENSIONS
Ruairí Quinn: €41,656
Bertie Ahern: €98,901
Richard Bruton: €13,242
Parliamentarians who have forgone ministerial pensions, (provisional 2009 figures which have yet to be audited):
Joan Burton (Lab): €1,664
Jimmy Deenihan (FG): €1,655
Eamon Gilmore (Lab): €1,181
Michael D Higgins (Lab): €17,738
Enda Kenny (FG): €9,113
Liz McManus (Lab): €2,128
Mary O’Rourke (FF): €28,341
Pat Rabbitte (Lab): €4,255
Gay Mitchell MEP (FG): €2,837
Proinsias De Rossa MEP (Lab): €4,890
Michael Woods (FF) €33,343*
*forwent half pension entitlement
Parliamentarians and former ministers still receiving ministerial pensions (provisional 2009 figures which have yet to be audited):
Bertie Ahern (FF): €98,901
Bernard Allen (FG): €5,485
Liam Aylward MEP (FF): €12,261
Seán Barrett (FG): €28,667
Richard Bruton (FG): €13,242
Sen Ivor Callely (FF): €6,637
Paul Connaughton (FG): €16,092
Bernard Durkan (FG): €5,483
Frank Fahey (FF): €37,205
Pat “the Cope” Gallagher MEP (FF): €23,634
Jim Higgins MEP (FG): €5,952
Sen Terry Leyden (FF): €21,761
Jim McDaid (FF): €22,487
Michael Noonan (FG): €39,944
Ruairí O’Hanlon (FF): €82,355
Jim O’Keeffe (FG): €17,770
Ned O’Keeffe (FF): €6,810
Brian O’Shea (Lab): €7,716
Ruairí Quinn (Lab): €41,656
Emmet Stagg (Lab): €7,716
Noel Treacy (FF): €24,007
Former Fianna Fáil ministers who have received severance payments but to whom payments of pensions have not yet started:
Tom Kitt, Michael Ahern, John Browne, John McGuinness, Maire Hoctor, Mary Wallace, Jimmy Devins, Michael Kitt, John O’Donoghue and Willie O’Dea.