15/06/2009

'Overlapping' Ministerial Pensions To Go

A halt could be called today to the practice of TDs claiming pensions from previous public sector roles - on top of their ministerial salary.

Legislation on removing the ministerial pensions from serving TDs and Senators is expected to go to Government on Monday afternoon.

The legislation is expected to stop the payment of pensions to serving politicians entirely from after the next General Election.

It will also impose a reduction in pensions paid during the current Dáil. Legal advice suggests it is not possible to completely stop the payments during the term of the current Oireachtas, but that it is possible to reduce them, once the recipients have been consulted.

Controversy was stirred when it was claimed over half of the TDs had snubbed a letter from the Department of Finance, who had written to the 30 or so politicians receiving Ministerial pensions six weeks ago. However, it is believed that only three or four did not reply.

The RTÉ website revealed that Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny replied on behalf of all his TDs and Senators who are in receipt of pensions, so while there were 16 responses, these covered almost all the politicians involved.

(DW/BMcc)

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