Pain and Pensions: the rich, or at least higher level public sector employees, truly are different. September 24, 2009
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.trackback
Excuse me my moment of populist irritation, but really, isn’t it striking the distinction we see in the treatment of Rody Molloy and er… others in the current economic straits… at least as regards pensions…
The Government approved a package for former Fás director general Rody Molloy because he threatened legal action to get a €1 million pension, it was revealed today.
And…
Mr Molloy stood down last November at the height of controversy surrounding lavish expenses by top officials at the State agency, including spending of €643,000 by Fás officials over four years on transatlantic travel.
And…
“It was made very clear that if the individual felt he wasn’t being treated reasonably he was reserving his right to take court action,” he said. “That was made very clear.”
And…
Mr Molloy left the agency with a pension worth €111,000 a year, a tax-free lump sum of €333,732, and a taxable ex-gratia payment of €111,243.50. The capital sum on his pension amounted to about €1 million, the committee heard. Mr Molloy also had four and a half years added to his pension entitlement.
Hard to disagree with the following comment…
Committee chairman Bernard Allen strongly criticised the Department, claiming Mr Molloy was being appeased with a sweetheart deal rewarding failure.
“Why was the value equivalent to winning the Lotto, transferred to the former DG (Director General) for his pension, when the man spent and oversaw spending on travel, on a lifestyle more equivalent to a rock star than a public servant,” Mr Allen said.
“I don’t think we should be appeasing people who make mistakes for fear of litigation and certainly to my knowledge, and of the evidence before me, there has been appeasement here because of the threat of court action.”
the rich become more rich, the less become lesser.
it always happened….
As overheard on a Dublin bus between two old fellers, “that’s just the way them people live”.
Tim, it sure feels that way sometimes. I call it social welfare for the rich, or at leas higher lever public sector employees.
Was Molloy a Government appointee, or an actual career civil servant? I confess to not knowing much about Fás (perhaps luckily enough, and long may it continue).
I have had few enough dealings with FÁS down the years too. As far as I know Molloy was a career civil servant. This whole episode exposes a rottenness at the top. But a couple of experiences during the 80s and 90s lead me to suspect that there was a seam of FF rottenness running through FÁS from top to bottom. I remember talking to a chap in Kilbarrack in the 80s. He was on the dole, an active WP supporter, and I mentioned something to him about the FÁS office in Coolock. To which he replied “That’s a Fianna Fáil cumann”. My job in the same general area in the early 90s led me into contact with people involved in a community history group. I quickly surmised that these people were local FF apparatchiks. I met one of them in the big FÁS place in Baldoyle and saw how he was one of many local FF men working in or with FÁS there.
Important to stress that most people in FÁS got on with the job in as fair and honest a way as possible, I expect. But there’s another book to be written about how FF infiltrates and manipulates state bodies for local and national political gain – the world masters at clientelism.
The fact that the government didn’t even seek legal advice to see was there any basis to his threat of legal action suggests that legal action was actually the reason for this pay-out, but the excuse for it. And it’s not the first time legal action/advice has been used as a smokescreen by this government. They did it in connection with the judge’s pay cut, and in one other high profile case which has annoyingly slipped my memory right at this very moment. And, of course, the ever ready answer for any query concerning political corruption was, “that’s sub judice, it’s before the tribunals at the moment.”
The papers and television have to pretend that there’s some substance to this excuse. Anyone with sense can see that Cowen, sorry that his mate was going to have to resign, told Molloy he’d be looked after and the blow would be softened. That’s how it works. Though no doubt we’ll be told that, no more than NAMA and O’Donoghue, this is another issue which has nothing at all to do with the necessity to impose savage cuts elsewhere. I noticed Mary Hanafin on the news talking about, “difficult decisions.” Difficult for who? Not for Mary Hanafin, I cherish the memory of her saying, a couple of years back, that the people she felt sorry for in this society were those who had to buy a holiday home because they were pressurised into it by the fact that other people had bought one.
Sorry, ‘that legal action was not the reason for this pay-out, but the excuse for it.’ Plausible deniability is big with our politicians, though like Bertie they’ll settle for the implausible variety if they have to.
In a country where hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs and where front line public sector workers have taken pay cuts and are under pressure for more, this story is utterly sickening. This is a perfect illustration of the rot in our political culture. Eamonn Cork is perfectly right – this is how it works. Thousands of top agency/quango jobs are used as political patronage – jobs for the boys. It has been said over and over that we have to, just have to, try to create a proper system for appointing, remunerating, and dismissing the people who run these hundreds of agencies.
Can some one correct me when I say that the FG and Labour are not strongly in favour of change here because they sniff power and would want to use this same system to pay back their own buddies?
And another thing, was the €333,732 lump sum separate from pension? If so, how can it be tax free?
I’d say your spot on about the desire to get their turn on the gravy train Tomaltach. Especially FG. I suspect that if you looked at quangos appointed during the Rainbow Coalition you would find that this happened.
I suspect the knowledge of where a few bodies were buried (metaphorically speaking) may have provided the leverage required to get such a sweetheart deal, rather than the plausibility of any legal challenge.
We think alike, and not for the first time.