Journalist and lecturer Ken Foxe, founder of investigative news site Noteworthy, sought details of the pensions paid to all former constitutional/ministerial/judicial office holders in 2017 and 2018.
But the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform refused to give Mr Foxe a detailed breakdown – saying the individuals’ right to privacy outweighed the public interest.
Instead, the department released the total amount paid and the number of people within each group who received pensions (see tables above for amounts paid in 2017 and 2018).
Mr Foxe is reporting that that this is the first time the State has refused to give a detailed breakdown of the pensions paid.
He’s also reporting that, up until 2016, details of how much former taoisigh, presidents, and ministers “were published as a matter of routine on the Department of Finance website” but this ended in 2017 due to GDPR rules.
Mr Foxe will be appealing the decision.
That’s a howling greengrocer’s apostrophe in “Attorneys General”.
and C&AG’s too?
Indeed. For some reason it tends to happen often, and be more widely accepted, following an acronym.
True dat.
Although if we are being
grammar Nazistechnically correct “C&AG” is an initialism rather than an acronym.Hoist with own petard, etc.
Brown envelopes are no longer needed
Is the uproar about the amount? 66K a year for a judge’s pension is not scandalous… the aim is to target 60% of final earnings. That sounds about right. 29k on average for ministers/TDs and then 125k for the president. The presidents pension is massive all things considered……
I know but considering that you’ve met your lifetime’s financial commitments – raising children, home ownership etc by 67, it’s hard to understand why the get more than the industrial wage, which should be sufficient to cover food, light and heat, running a car, healthcare and holiday or two a year. The longer pension disparity goes on, the harder it is to sustain.
Personally, I thought the figures would be higher….
GDPR is fast approaching the utility of “health and safety” or “legal advice” as a catch-all excuse for continuing to obstruct,, obfuscate and generally fleece those who expect public services to be public.