Kenny defends ministerial pensions

FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny yesterday defended ministerial pensions being given to sitting members of the Dáil who had previously served in government.

He is one of many TDs currently receiving a ministerial pension.

Mr Kenny said: “These arrangements have been there for a very long time. Actually I am the recipient of a very small pension myself, as I was only a minister for a number of years. What do you want us to do? Hand it back?”

Last October, he said he was the first person in the country to stand out front and say he had instructed the Paymaster General to cut his salary.

Mr Kenny said he was glad the penny seems to have dropped with the Taoiseach about the scale of the crisis the country is in, referring to Mr Cowen’s Dublin Chamber of Commerce speech.

Mr Kenny was speaking in Limerick where he launched a Fine Gael 13-point recovery plan for the mid-west after the Dell decision to transfer 1,900 Limerick jobs to Poland.

Key proposals include committed funding for the multi billion euro regeneration of run-down parts of Limerick; special funding to market Shannon airport and a centre of energy innovation to be set up at the University of Limerick and Limerick Institute of Technology.

Mr Kenny called for IDA involvement in the government task force set up to respond to the jobs crisis in the mid-west following the Dell decision.

Mr Kenny said: “Limerick and the mid-west should become the priority for IDA investment over the next 12 months.”

Companies wishing to invest in Ireland, he said, should be given the opportunity to see the prospectus on what is on offer in the mid-west.

The Fine Gael plan was not meant to be an answer to all the region’s problems, but it had practicable achievable objectives.

Questioned on funding for the proposals, he said money would not have to be found in any new pot, but could be drawn from existing budgets.

Mr Kenny said: “The key challenge currently, both regionally and nationally, is job retention.

“The primary role of the state enterprise agencies nationally and centrally must be to get support into individual companies before a crisis hits, or before drastic action resulting in job reduction has to be taken.”