DR JIM McDaid, who resigned his Dáil seat on Tuesday, will receive more than €250,000 from the public purse over the next 12 months and will be entitled to a pension of €75,000 a year after that.
The former Donegal North East TD will be entitled to an immediate tax-free termination lump sum, followed by 12 monthly termination payments and then a tax-free-lump sum of 1½ times his TD’s salary before his half-salary pension kicks in.
According to the Houses of the Oireachtas Members’ Pension and Termination Entitlements (New Scheme Provisions), a TD with Dr McDaid’s service is entitled to an immediate tax-free termination lump sum of €17,763.
After that the former TD can draw down 12 monthly termination payments. For the first six months they will come to 75 per cent of salary, and for the next six months 50 per cent of salary will be paid.
The total in termination payments will come to about €67,000 over the 12 months and is taxable like a normal salary.
Once the termination payments are finished Dr McDaid will be entitled to drawn down his tax-free pension lump sum of 1½ times salary which will come to about €160,000.
After that he will be entitled to draw a pension of half a TD’s salary, which comes to €53,000 a year. He will also have his ministerial pension of €22,487, which he has been drawing since he lost office as a minister.
Last April Dr McDaid refused to give up his ministerial pension when almost all of the TDs entitled to such payments gave them up.
Dr McDaid said at the time he did not believe he had a particular entitlement to these payments but argued that great harm would be done to democracy if media pressure resulted in politics becoming the reserve of the wealthy.
He said the significant costs incurred by sitting TDs must be met by their office if political representation was to remain an option for every citizen, regardless of their wealth.
