Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I raise this issue because it angers many people. While I acknowledge that it is a complicated area and a number of changes have been made, it makes people's blood boil when they hear a report that 111 former Ministers were paid pensions worth €9,653,000 in 2012. Notwithstanding the Minister's response, I understand the Taoiseach can walk away with a pension of €20,000 after only two years in the role, and I presume the Taoiseach's pension increases in subsequent years. After two years, the pensions available to the Tánaiste and Ministers are approximately €18,000 and €15,000, respectively. The average public sector worker would have to work for 40 years to accumulate a pension of €20,000, whereas the Taoiseach receives that level of pension after only two years and, on reaching retirement age, he will also receive the pension provided to a Deputy and so forth. Having been hit with all the financial emergency measures, the universal social charge and pension levies, people ask the reason the Taoiseach and other Ministers can walk away from office after only two years with a pension of nearly 20 grand.

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