FIANNA FÁIL leader Micheál Martin changed his stance on ministerial severance payments yesterday and said he would waive the €90,000 to which he was entitled if he kept his seat in the Dáil.
Launching the Fianna Fáil manifesto on Monday, Mr Martin said he was not willing to forgo the payment of €88,745 available for departing ministers, but yesterday he said his former ministerial colleagues who were returned to the Dáil would have to relinquish the amount.
“I accept the fundamental principle that severance payments should be applied to people who have lost their jobs and on that basis we are saying as policy that those who are re-elected to the 31st Dáil will waive their severance payments, and I think that’s the right thing to do.”
Mr Martin said severance payments had been in place since 1992 and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and finance spokesman Michael Noonan, as well as Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, who had served as ministers in the past, would have received such payments.
Denying that he had caved in to public pressure on the matter in recent days, Mr Martin said he had been party leader for two weeks and two days, “and quite frankly prior to that I hadn’t really thought of the issue of severance”.
Fianna Fáil deputy leader Mary Hanafin on Thursday said she would be willing to forgo the payment, but only if the scheme was changed for everybody.
Fine Gael TD Brian Hayes said Mr Martin had “been shamed into the U-turn on not accepting his €90,000 payout”. Mr Hayes said Fine Gael proposed the abolition of all severance payments for former ministers, not just those returning to the Dáil.
“Of course all outgoing government ministers should simply give up these excessive severance payments of up to €90,000. The people receiving the severance payments represent a rogues’ gallery of those who have brought financial ruin upon our country.”
Mr Martin’s comment that he had not given thought to the issue showed “how profoundly out of touch Fianna Fáil is”, Mr Hayes added. He also said some former Fianna Fáil ministers who were retiring would receive more in pension payments than they would if returned as TDs.
Mr Kenny indicated he felt no obligation to return a severance payment from 1997. “I think it was around €40,000 paid over three years in very different circumstances and that came at the end of a government that was creating 1,000 jobs a week, that introduced the first budgetary surplus in over 25 years, and therefore the question of paying it back doesn’t arise,” he said.
Mr Gilmore said the severance payment he received was for a relatively short period as a minister of state and the amount reflected that. Green leader John Gormley said he would like to give his severance payment to charity, with some of the money going to his party.
Meanwhile, Mr Martin, who was a teacher before becoming a TD, said he would not resign his teaching position, although he would “not be returning to teaching ever again”, because such a move would result in the person who had replaced him losing their job and the school losing the position. Under a long-standing agreement, teaching jobs are kept open for TDs.
He said he had forfeited pension entitlements and other benefits relating to his teaching position.
“I don’t know whether Enda Kenny has done that or what Enda Kenny did with his teaching pension.”
A Fine Gael spokesman said Mr Kenny, who like Mr Martin was a teacher, had resigned his teaching post “years ago” and was not in receipt of a teacher’s pension.
SEVERANCE PAYMENTS: WHO GETS WHAT
Departing ministers, including those remaining as TDs, are entitled to a severance payment of €88,745.
The payment was introduced under the Oireachtas (Allowances to Members) and Ministerial and Parliamentary Offices (Amendment) Act, 1992. Former ministers can get severance payments for two years to compensate them for the loss of their ministerial salaries. The maximum amount of severance is one year’s salary spread over two years, and pensions are not payable during a period when severance is being paid. Severance payments are taxed.
When the Green Party’s former minister of state for food and agriculture Trevor Sargent resigned from his post last year, he donated his severance payment to charity.
A person who ceases office to take up a post to which he or she is appointed by or nominated to by the government is not entitled to a severance allowance. The severance rate is determined by the length of time during which the allowance is payable. If that period is less than six months, the rate is 75 per cent of salary; between six and 18 months, the rate is 75 per cent of salary for the first six months and 50 per cent of salary for the remainder; more than 18 months, the rate is 75 per cent of salary for the first six months, 50 per cent of salary for the next 12 months and 25 per cent of salary for the rest.
