Madam, – The appalling vista of retiring senators receiving such large pensions is both galling and depressing (Home News, May 30th). The injustice of the privileged few receiving so much for so little is perhaps a good pen-picture of our country. Yet again, we see that “privilege wins out” while the rest of us must listen to lectures on how we must learn to live with less.
As a parent of a daughter with a mental handicap, I contrast the lifestyle and struggles of my own and similar families to those of retiring senators. Her social welfare payment has been cut, there are virtually no respite beds/places available in country. Services such as speech-language therapy is but a dream and the waiting list for an audiology consultancy is currently running at 12 months. The amount of respite care or other family support that could be provided by the Seanad “termination payments” alone is staggering.
The new Government saw this issue coming but chose not to address it. Clearly, nothing has changed but the colour of the shirts. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The disturbing revelation (Home News, May 30th) that 19 of 21 former senators are to receive lump sum payments over the next 13 months that average almost €229,000 per person is an outrageous affront to society. These payments are in addition to an annual pension pot of over a half million euro.
The combined effect suggests that political patronage remains an extravagant gilt-edged gift that keeps on giving – irrespective of whether a politician is in, or out, of office. The impudent scale of them illustrates how immune and indifferent politicians are to the devastating impact of the economic travails on everybody else and to their understanding of the concept of affordability.
The 23rd Seanad sat for less than 100 days each year, so the role of a senator is part-time and intermittent. Apart from a salary provision of €4.25 million in 2011, there is also provision this year to pay our part-time senators €1.38 million for travel expenses to attend the august institution and almost €1.25 million in other allowances – equivalent to average annual payment of almost €115,000 for their part-time service. Yet, each senator also has full-time secretarial support for the 140 working days that they are absent from the House each year.
If the Government really wants the public to live within the means of the State, more fervent example ought to be clearly evident from all branches of the Oireachtas and the establishment.
Our nation cannot afford an extravagant Senate, with an ambivalent mandate, which civic society has no part in choosing and which is not answerable to the people. The sooner the issue of its future is put to the electorate in a constitutional referendum the better. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I choked over my breakfast, as I read the Irish Timesarticle on Senators' pensions (Home News, May 30th). It makes Caligula look reasonable.
Bring on the referendum. – Yours, etc,