Mr.Cowan reducing sitting TD's pensions by 25%

Lorcan 17

Reported in this mornings Indo . Must say this betrays how morally bankrupt this Government are . In the real world you work hard for 40 years and at the end of that you might get a pension . On planet Leinster House no much rules apply . Get your arse into a Ministers seat for a while and yours on a pension straight after . These abuses have to stop-totally .not piecemeal .

jimmmy

Lorcan 17 wrote: »

Reported in this mornings Indo . Must say this betrays how morally bankrupt this Government are . In the real world you work hard for 40 years and at the end of that you might get a pension . On planet Leinster House no much rules apply . Get your arse into a Ministers seat for a while and yours on a pension straight after . These abuses have to stop-totally .not piecemeal .

I agree totally. There was a great programme on the tv a month or two ago about the gravy train of government pensions. Its outrageous the government pensions some public service people are on e.g. over 100,000 euro per year in some cases. Who needs that amount when retired, and presumably mortgage paid off, mostly kids educated etc.

Lorcan 17

Lorcan 17 wrote: »

Must say this betrays how morally bankrupt this Government are.

Yes. He should have kept them the same, reducing them is a disgrace...

jimmmy wrote: »

Who needs that amount when retired, and presumably mortgage paid off, mostly kids educated etc.

Retired?

How long have the likes of Pat Rabbitte been collecting ministerial pensions now? As well as current TD salaries? Though he did face significant expenses on the kids education front, but if you send them to exclusive schools you have to pay for it.

P. Breathnach

Deleted User wrote: »

... Retired? ...

You miss jimmmy's point: he is attacking public service pensions more generally.

Het-Field

More useless posturing. A fraction of the overall payment. Another tokenisitic measure which can be dredged up in December when the budget bites us in the ass.

Liam Byrne

Apparently they couldn't legally stop it....

So why not reduce it by 99% ?

deadhead13

The payments will be abolished entirely after the next general election. Since a number of ex-ministers refused to take the cut, the legal advice coming from the Attorney General is a 25% cut is the largest that could be imposed. Which begs the question - why wasn't the Attorney General consulted before the announcement was made in the first place? It would appear that Cowen and Lenihan underestimated the the greed of their colleagues.

Síle28

Hmm it would be a good idea to learn how to spell the Taoiseach's name before posting rants about him, Cowen not Cowan bla You do have a point tho :P

Liam Byrne

deadhead13 wrote: »

....a number of ex-ministers refused to take the cut....

Apparently they didn't even reply to the letter they got!

Do you know of any other employees (and remember, these scumbags are OUR employees) who had the luxury of refusing ?

And remember that we're not talking actual pensions here; we're talking about money that they get when they're fired or otherwise not re-elected! But they still have their jobs!

Shower of absolute scumbags! Has anyone named and shamed them yet ?

"Sharing the pain" my arse! Shoot the f**king lot of 'em! :mad:

Liam Byrne

deadhead13 wrote: »

the legal advice coming from the Attorney General is a 25% cut is the largest that could be imposed

P.S. Does anyone know whether the Attorney General would fall under similar legislation ? That if the TDs "keep-getting-paid-forever" perks were cut, that the AG would have theirs cut too ?

Not accusing or implying.....just asking....

And if not, who made this law ? I thought the Dail were our legislators ? So change the f**king corrupt law, ye brain-dead scumbags!

deadhead13

28 sitting TD's and 5 MEP's are former ministers.

A number of TD's have already indicated they wish to relinquish their miniterial pensions - Enda Kenny, Eamon Gilmore, Jimmy Deenihan, Joan Burton, Liz McManus, Mary O'Rourke, Gay Mithchell and Proinsias de Rossa.

That leaves 25 who may, or may not, have refused.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0617/1224248984073.html

Liam Byrne

deadhead13 wrote: »

Mary O Rourke, Enda Kenny, Eamon Gilmore and Joan Burton are the only ones I'm aware of, who wrote to the department asking not to be paid the pensions. And possibly Ruairi Quinn.

I reckon you should edit / rephrase that post, deadhead, because while the full sentence means that we have 4 politicians worth keeping, and yet - given that it's 4 - it seems to imply that those are the 4 who ensured that justice wasn't done.

dresden8

jimmmy wrote: »

I agree totally. There was a great programme on the tv a month or two ago about the gravy train of government pensions. Its outrageous the government pensions some public service people are on e.g. over 100,000 euro per year in some cases. Who needs that amount when retired, and presumably mortgage paid off, mostly kids educated etc.

Maybe you should have told us about this sometime before.

Anyway, I agree with jimmmy, all public servants should get 100k pensions and not a cent more.

P. Breathnach

dresden8 wrote: »

... Anyway, I agree with jimmmy, all public servants should get 100k pensions and not a cent more.

I like the sound of that. When do I get my increase?

dresden8

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I like the sound of that. When do I get my increase?

Surely you mean decrease? Jimmmy saw the George Lee programme on RTE about retired ex-Taoisigh, and his mates have pensions so high that they cannot spend their money, no matter how many luxury holidays they take.

Surely you just throw the cheques on the pile?

Akrasia

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Apparently they couldn't legally stop it....

So why not reduce it by 99% ?

I think the most telling aspect of this story is that all the affected ministers were 'written to' to ask them to volunteer to take a reduction and half of them didn't bother to reply.

This says two things, firstly, that these people have no shame, and secondly, that the government must be woefully inefficient if these small number of people could not have been directly contacted about this matter instead of sending out a memo and waiting weeks to see if there would be a reply.

dresden8

Freedom of Information request anyone?

gimme5minutes

Im sick of the government always coming out with 'we cant do it for legal reasons line'. They are the fooking government, they are in overall control of the law, they can change it at will. Its the same with the 'enshrined in the constitution' excuse. They can amend the constitution, a document written over 80 years ago when most of Ireland didn't even have electricty, as much as they want.

This constant blaming legal reasons as way of doing nothing are another reason why I absolutely despise FF.

jimmmy

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I like the sound of that. When do I get my increase?

Think its a decrease you should be looking for, not an increase, given the state of the countries finances. As a retired public servant you already are one of those on the gravy train who get a pension well out of line with the average pension for public servants in the EC.

Riskymove

jimmmy wrote: »

Think its a decrease you should be looking for, not an increase, given the state of the countries finances. As a retired public servant you already are one of those on the gravy train who get a pension well out of line with the average pension for public servants in the EC.

1. How do you know what level of pension he's on in order to make such a statement, typical.

2. he was responding to dresden8's post that "public servants should get a pension of 100k and not a cent more"...I think all public servants would be happy with that:rolleyes:

Riskymove

jimmmy wrote: »

I agree totally. There was a great programme on the tv a month or two ago about the gravy train of government pensions. Its outrageous the government pensions some public service people are on e.g. over 100,000 euro per year in some cases. Who needs that amount when retired, and presumably mortgage paid off, mostly kids educated etc.

again typical off-topic jimmmy re-posting

this thread is about the payment of a "pension" to someone whose actually still getting a (very good) salary.

I am glad to see that they are being stopped but its unfortunate that the likes of Bertie wont lose a cent

jimmmy

Riskymove wrote: »

this thread is about the payment of a "pension" to someone whose actually still getting a (very good) salary.

This thread is about reducing some government pensions by 25%. The band of people it applies to needs to be widened, so a larger percentage of those on government pensions need to be included. The CSO will not disclose average government or public sector pension ....only that average public sector pay is 966 p.w. and those who retire ( presumably those who retire are on average on considerably more than the average of 966 p.w., due to age , promotion etc ) get the large lump sum plus 50% of the pay of the grade they were on at retirement.

Riskymove

jimmmy wrote: »

This thread is about reducing some government pensions by 25%.

its clearly not but that's what you want it to be about!!

If you read the OP you'll see its about getting a pension while still working rather than waiting to retire, it does not mention amounts of money at all

This change is to be made only to payments made to former Ministers still sitting in the Oireachtas and does not actually reduce their pension

Therefore its not about reducing pensions at all

Start another thread (again) if you wish to discuss your hobby horse (again) and stop trying to turn every thread into what you want to talk about

getcover

Deleted User wrote: »

How long have the likes of Pat Rabbitte been collecting ministerial pensions now? As well as current TD salaries? Though he did face significant expenses on the kids education front, but if you send them to exclusive schools you have to pay for it.

Interesting that 4 Labour Party members have already said they are not taking the pension, but you choose to single out a Labour party ex-minister who hasnt declared anything yet.
Weren't there any FF people to post about?
What about the great socialist, has he given up his pension, or is he using it to win some more money on the horses?


Anyway, why couldn't Cowen simply stop the payments? Anyone who wanted them to continue would then have had to go to Court to seek continued payment, and we could all have seen exactly who stands where...

solice

Riskymove wrote: »

its clearly not but that's what you want it to be about!!

If you read the OP you'll see its about getting a pension while still working rather than waiting to retire, it does not mention amounts of money at all

This change is to be made only to payments made to former Ministers still sitting in the Oireachtas and does not actually reduce their pension

Therefore its not about reducing pensions at all

Start another thread (again) if you wish to discuss your hobby horse (again) and stop trying to turn every thread into what you want to talk about

Can someone please change the thread title to Cowen...please....

This thread specifically is about the pension payments being made to people who are still being employed. But it also brings up other issues such as the public service pension deficit that is costing the state far too much to maintain, even with the recent pension levy adjustments. If there is a 25% reduction in the ministers pensions, why not a 25% reduction in all public service pensions? Obviously this should be staggered, 1% for low paid workers right up to 25% for the very high paid workers and cap the maximum pension payment at a reasonable figure.

I agree a seperate thread should be started to deal with that issue but im afraid that it has been dealt with to death in previous threads.

Riskymove

solice wrote: »

If there is a 25% reduction in the ministers pensions,

again...pensions are not being reduced...only the payments to sitting TDs....retired are still getting their pensions and when any of these sitting TDs retire they will get pensions (not reduced by 25%)

P. Breathnach

jimmmy wrote: »

Think its a decrease you should be looking for, not an increase, given the state of the countries finances. As a retired public servant you already are one of those on the gravy train who get a pension well out of line with the average pension for public servants in the EC.

I feel as if I have been kicked by a one-trick pony. Somebody should bolt the stable door.

LoLth

jimmy, I think the indo is talking about the pensions received by governemnt officials after 4 or 5 years service. for a minister to receive a ful pension after only 5 years (i'll use 5 as its the higher number) is, quite frankly, ridiculous as they can still return to their old careers once they leave government and , I would assume, they have been paying PRSI etc while they were receiving quite high salaries for those 5 years.

What I dont think is ridiculous is someone getting a pension after 40 years having paid into that pension through superannuation and now a pension "levy" (though that doesnt actually go strictly to the pension fund, its used for other purposes). - and, whether you like it or not, many many many posters pointed these figures out to you already.

also, seeing as you are raising your €966 "point" from the dead (wah! zombie numbers!!!) thought you might be interested in this thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055593387 may be the missing ingredient to create some sort of recurring postal vampire or ghoul of some sort.

ednwireland

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Apparently they couldn't legally stop it....

So why not reduce it by 99% ?

wondering that myself, fuunny how they cant legally stoip these payements but they manage to cut my salary 10 % last month (i'm in the private sector on a fixed salary no overtime) with a rake of stuff i'd not heard about, they are asking someone on benefit to ask me to cut the rent on a house i rent out ( which is well under the average for that sort of house deliberatly kept cheap to make sure its rented out) morally bankrupy, incompetant an clueless if you ask me.

Seth Brundle

deadhead13 wrote: »

The payments will be abolished entirely after the next general election. Since a number of ex-ministers refused to take the cut, the legal advice coming from the Attorney General is a 25% cut is the largest that could be imposed. Which begs the question - why wasn't the Attorney General consulted before the announcement was made in the first place? It would appear that Cowen and Lenihan underestimated the the greed of their colleagues.

Apparently the AG will not release the info the decision of 25% being the max is based on - we are to take their word on it!

As for the 1/2 of the TD sent the letter, apparently 18 FG TDs replied within one letter so when it was claimed that 1/2 were received, this does not include the other 17.

jimmmy

LoLth wrote: »

What I dont think is ridiculous is someone getting a pension after 40 years having paid into that pension through superannuation and now a pension "levy" (though that doesnt actually go strictly to the pension fund, its used for other purposes). - and, whether you like it or not, many many many posters pointed these figures out to you already..

I do'nt think its "ridiculous that someone getting a pension after 40 years " either...what is thought to be ridiculous by many is the size of the pension. That was the thrust of the RTE programme on "the public sector gravy train " pensions a month or two ago. ...they explained it better than I do. For example, some public servants taking early retirement now have a pension pot worth over a million euro...much much more than any total of "superannuation and now a pension levy" that they have ever paid.

LoLth wrote: »

also, seeing as you are raising your €966 "point" from the dead (wah! zombie numbers!!!) thought you might be interested in this thread: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055593387 may be the missing ingredient to create some sort of recurring postal vampire or ghoul of some sort.

Ah, my point entirely.....what other government in the world pays its public sector workers and retirees so much....I know a public servant in Oz and they cannot fly around the world for the equivalent of some days govt handout.

As another poster pointed out how the public service pension deficit is costing the state far too much to maintain ( even with the recent pension levy adjustments), why not a 25% reduction not just in some ministers pension, but in in all public service pensions? Obviously this should be staggered, 1% for low paid workers right up to 25% for the very high paid workers and cap the maximum pension payment at a reasonable figure. The state of the nations finances is so serious we have to see the wood from the trees : what ministers are costing in pensions is very little compared to what hundreds of thousands of other ex govt employees are costing.