Shane Ross (Dublin South, Independent)

The Government did something right in regard to the ESB when it restricted the pay of its chief executive officer by way of the introduction last session of a cap on pay in semi-State bodies. People with private pensions are up in arms about the plundering of their funds through the Government's levy. Nowhere was this more evident than last week when salt was poured into the wounds of these pensioners with the news that Mr. Dermot McCarthy, the former Secretary General at the Department of the Taoiseach, was given a €700,000 pay-off and a pension that would make a banker blush. It is an extraordinary situation. The person who sat beside Cabinet at a time when the Government was preaching austerity was given €700,000 to retire at the age of 57. I am interested to hear the Tánaiste's response to the following. Bankers and people in private industry are paid vast sums for failure and people at the top of the public service are paid to retire early when, if they are so good at their job, they should be incentivised to remain on. It is unacceptable that this type of practice continues. This package-deal puts the deal given to Mr. Patrick Neary and the former Governor of the Central Bank, Mr. John Hurley, in the shade. It is not acceptable for the Government simply to say there is little it can do. An element of the package with which Mr. McCarthy walked away was tax free yet small taxpayers are being asked to pay more in their pensions. Can the Tánaiste give us an assurance that there is no other such pension or payment in the pipeline?

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