Fate of Leinster House pensioners now a humanitarian issue

DÁIL SKETCH:SCIENTISTS WERE baffled. A dusty buzzing cloud suddenly appeared above Drumcondra yesterday afternoon. It was a swarm of moths. Loads of them, and hours to go 'til nightfall.

Moments before they fluttered skyward, a strange sound echoed around the northside of Dublin. It was a tortured creaking noise, like ancient hinges being prised apart.

Then an anguished groan rent the spring air. “Aaaargh!”

What could this mean?

Only one thing: Bertie had opened his wallet.

And with this selfless painful gesture, yet another political “pinchin” was offered up to appease the appetite of an angry public and voracious media. It’s all Máire Rake-it-in’s fault.

But is it right?

The former taoiseach is now down almost a hundred thousand euro as a result of surrendering his pension, and he won’t get it back until he (officially) retires from work. All he has to survive on is his Dáil salary and his income from international speaking engagements and a newspaper column.

If Bertie didn’t have a car and driver to take him to crucial Dáil votes he’d be near destitute.

As it is, dig-out territory can’t be far away.

For God’s sake, won’t somebody think of the poor pensioners!

The sob stories came from all sides of the Dáil. What about Fine Gael’s Michael Noonan, down nearly €40k and forced to eke out an existence on a TD’s wages plus expenses until he retires.

Ruairí Quinn (more than €41k) “decided to forgo” his pension in light of the deteriorating economic situation. It could be years before he gets it now, given that there is a reasonable chance he might become a minister if Labour gets into power.

Throughout the day the list of deputies who had not relinquished their super superannuation packages dwindled. At lunchtime, Enda Kenny instructed his remaining pensioners to “volunteer” their little perk and they duly fell into line. Ditto for the Labour old-timers.

By late afternoon, when news surfaced that Bertie Ahern was parking his substantial pension for a while, the remaining Fianna Fáil hardliners began bowing to the inevitable. The Taoiseach seemed to have some sympathy for them. He wasn’t going to do anything as decisive as Enda and Eamon and instruct his troops to relinquish the pensions.

As he mumbled during Leaders’ Questions, those people had “a legitimate expectation”. And you can’t be trifling with people’s legitimate expectations.

It’s the law. And if there’s one thing Biffo knows, it’s the law. At least that’s what the Attorney General tells him, and what the AG says goes in Biffo’s book.

So he told the Dáil he was constitutionally prevented from introducing legislation to end the ridiculous pension gravy train. People have legitimate expectations, and all that. They could take the State to court.

“Well let them challenge it, then!” snorted Enda, not unreasonably.

A court case we’d all love to see, although the lynch mob outside might prove problematic.

Of course, in reality, it’s all the fault of the media. Labour’s Emmet Stagg (losing a modest in work retirement pension) said so on the television news last night.

Bertie’s brother Deputy Noel Ahern went on Newstalk at lunchtime and said the calls for sitting TDs and Senators to give up their ministerial pensions amounted to a “witch-hunt.”

Some barristers are making a fortune, he argued. Not to mention hospital consultants. And certain broadcasters are earning far more than politicians. You could have a judge, for example, married to a consultant.

As for Noel, he said his wife “doesn’t work outside the home”.

Privately, there was a lot of annoyance over EU commissioner Máire Rake-it-in, whose initial refusal to forgo her huge ministerial pension while earning just under a quarter of a million euro in her European job sparked the “pinchin” frenzy of the past few days.

As for Brian Cowen, once again he was left in the starting blocks by the Opposition, who took the pension issue to those deputies who were dragging their heels and told them to do the right thing. Biffo’s hands were tied. The likes of Bertie and the rest are entitled to their “legitimate expectation”.

It’s a handy phrase to remember in the future. If his boys have a legitimate expectation to be given their pension, do the rest of us have a legitimate expectation to decent government . . . a hospital bed . . . a well-run economy . . . a taoiseach in whom we can have confidence . . .

In the meantime, all we can do is think of the poor pensioners of Leinster House. It’s a humanitarian issue now.

Maybe we could get them nice uniforms, like the Chelsea Pensioners, and put them up in a Nama apartments and make sure they have a place to lay their weary heads in the dark days ahead.

Of course, for those who really, really need those pensions, if we doubled them, might they retire now?