Politicians ‘still owe thousands’ on pensions debt

AT LEAST one former politician has failed to fully reimburse a pension overpayment six years after it was discovered.

The failure to pay is revealed in the Comptroller and Auditor General’s report for 2018 on pension payments to politicians which was recently laid before the house.

The figures reveal that in 2012 it was identified that a ‘pensions overpayment’ of €34,384 was made to the pre 2011 pension scheme.

But, seven years after the overpayment to the mystery politician or politicians, €12,034 of the debt has not been paid back.

‘Slow in reimbursing as settling bar tabs’

The report also reveals that under a second scheme of Pension Aggregation excess payments of €9,947 have still not been fully paid off.

This second overpayment was identified in 2016 but €4,311 of the debt remains to be paid off at the close of 2018.

Commenting on the ongoing debt levels a senior Leinster House source noted: ‘It appears to be the case that politicians are as slow in reimbursing pension over-payments as they are in settling their bar tabs.’

The figures also reveal that there were five recipients of lump sums in 2018, which cost the exchequer €169,472 in 2018. These are made in cases of death or retirement.

In 2017, 14 lump sum payments were made out at a cost of €991,701. The recipients are not identified. The cost of political pensions, the report shows, continues to be a significant drain on Exchequer resources.

In 2017 these were €13,396,491 whilst the figures in 2018 were €12,368,557.

Politicians themselves, however, made relatively minuscule contributions to their pension pots, with the 218 TDs and Senators paying in a modest €589,561 in 2017 and €572,905 in 2018 in extra payments to the pension scheme.

Under GDPR data protection legislation, as it has been interpreted by Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe, individual payments are no longer revealed. However, top politicians enjoy a multi-millionaire pension pot of between €2m and €5m.

Those who feature in the multi-million Euro club include Taoiseach Enda Kenny on €2,848,810; former Ceann Comhairle Sean Barrett and two ex-Finance Ministers, Michael Noonan and Ruairi Quinn.

Other members of the future Oireachtas millionaires club include Willie O’Dea, Joan Burton, Richard Bruton, Brendan Howlin, Micheál Martin, Frances Fitzgerald, Charlie Flanagan, Sean Haughey and Shane Ross.

One source noted: ‘When it comes to being a drain on the exchequer to borrow a phrase, they never go away you know.’

They added: As for pension over-payments, it looks as though that is the politician’s version of PAYE; their variant is PWYL – Pay When You Like.’

‘They never go away, you know’