Ahern to get €68k severance payment

BERTIE AHERN will get a payoff amounting to about €68,000 after resigning as taoiseach earlier this year.

The severance payment, which is made under Oireachtas rules laid down by him when he was finance minster in 1992, will be made over seven months from May to November.

Further details of severance payments to politicians were released to RTÉ yesterday under Freedom of Information (FOI) and show that two Fianna Fáil TDs, John Browne and Michael Ahern, got payments of €53,000 each after losing their jobs as junior ministers in Brian Cowen’s cabinet reshuffle in May.