Big Phil only got golden parachute if he resigned, not if EU had sacked him
Golfgate landed him in the bunker but Hogan still has plenty of green to play with
PHIL Hogan would have been stripped of his EU pension and lucrative golden parachute payments if he’d been sacked as EU commissioner.
However, he avoided any such sanction by resigning before EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen had concluded her deliberations into his involvement in the now-notorious Golfgate scandal.
He is therefore entitled to an allowance of almost €300,000 alongside other financial perks.
This week Ms von der Leyen accepted Mr Hogan’s resignation saying she expected EU commissioners ‘to be particularly vigilant about compliance with applicable national or regional rules or recommendations’ as Europeans ‘make sacrifices and accept painful restrictions’.
Under EU regulations, any public office holder who is ‘relieved of their duties on grounds of serious misconduct… may accordingly be deprived of any right to transitional allowance or pension’.
But having resigned in advance of any sanction, Mr Hogan is now entitled to a ‘transitional allowance’ – effectively a golden parachute payment – of 55% of his final €270,000 salary for a period of up to two years.
The allowance – worth just under €300,000 to Mr Hogan – is to compensate for ethics rules that give the Commission a two-year veto over any jobs he may take should they be deemed a conflict of interest.
In addition to this allowance, Mr Hogan is entitled to resettlement expenses so long as he moves more than 70km from Brussels.
The resettlement perk is calculated at two month’s salary amounting to an additional €45,000 for Mr Hogan.
He is also entitled to have his removal expenses – and any associated accident insurance – reimbursed to cover the cost of moving ‘personal effects and furniture’.
These removal expenses can be claimed up to three years from the time an EU office holder ceases to work.
As a former EU official, Mr Hogan can also avail of generous health insurance benefits that cover 85% of the cost of ‘consultations and visits, surgical operations, hospitalisation, pharmaceutical products, radiology, analyses, laboratory tests and prostheses on medical prescription with the exception of dental prostheses’.
Treatment for diseases such as ‘tuberculosis, poliomyelitis, cancer and mental illness’ are 100% covered by the insurance scheme which EU office holders pay into during their career.
After all of that Mr Hogan also qualifies for an EU pension of more than €58,000 a year for life which he can receive in full from the age of 66. Mr Hogan, who turned 60 in July, can forego a percentage of this pension in a decreasing sliding scale if he wishes to begin receiving the money up to six years earlier than the full retirement age of 66.
After a lifetime in politics, Mr Hogan is also entitled to a Dáil and ministerial pension worth a combined €61,000 annually.
He waived these pensions when he took up his post in Europe six years ago – but has not indicated whether he will now claim the benefit.
New secrecy rules at the Oireachtas prohibiting the public disclosure of the pensions paid to former Dáil members and ministers means no one will know when and if Mr Hogan resumes taking his Oireachtas pension. During his retirement Mr
EU allowance worth just under €300k
Dáil and ministerial pension worth €61,000
Hogan can enjoy free associate memberships of luxury golf resorts such as the K Club and Kilkenny’s Mount Juliet Estate.
The Mount Juliet membership has been listed as a gift by Mr Hogan in Dáil declarations since 2003, while the K Club membership was mentioned for the first time in Mr Hogan’s EU declaration this year.
Over the years Mr Hogan, a onetime insurance broker and auctioneer, has invested significantly in property, owning various homes and properties in Kilkenny, Dublin 4 and Portugal.
His latest purchase – a mortgagefree €420,000 duplex apartment in the K Club – was bought from golfer Pádraig Harrington and his family in January.
The home, situated in a historic 17th-century walled garden adjacent to the K Club Hotel, Spa and Leisure Centre, is the largest of the apartments in the demesne’s Ryder Cup Village.