Kenny the mugger makes pensioners cough up cash

SO, it’s come to this then has it Enda Kenny – mugging poor defenceless pensioners to look big in front of your peers?

Enda didn’t need to don a hoodie to do the deed, the Fine Gael Don just herded his victims into a room and demanded they handed over their pension books one by one as he, no doubt, grinned maniacally to himself that this would show uppity Eamon Gilmore who was running the opposition turf from now on.

But yet again, taming Eamon was proving too elusive for Kid-gloves Kenny as the Labour leader had already shaken down his own ministerial pension- holders and persuaded them to fall on their entitlements for the good of the nation – and the party’s PR offensive. Better late than never, eh, Eamon?

Tensions have rarely been higher between the two opposition parties, who take great delight in trying to outmanoeuvre one another as Fianna Fáil is almost reduced to a clapped-out political punch-bag that can always be relied on to spectacularly miss the public mood, but which is useful to carry out a lot of the economic dirty work needed during the final two years of its mandate, while Labour and Fine Gael vie with each other for the change vote and draw-up fantasy cabinet lists.

But Enda would certainly have had the harder job wresting the lucrative lolly out of the sticky little fingers of his deputies if their previous views on the matter were anything to go by.

When contacted by the Irish Examiner just hours before, Galway TD Paul Connaughton would only haughtily announce: “I have no comment to make” regarding his €16,032 pension. Memo to Paul: You’re a public representative paid €100,000 a year to have opinions on contentious national issues, particularly ones involving yourself, if you can’t be bothered to articulate a basic thought process, then do everyone a favour and hand back the salary as well as the pension and quit the Dáil.

Richard Bruton was also strangely opaque on the issue as he mused about giving his €13,242 pension up if everyone else did – but clearly not being prepared to lead by example.

Bernard Durkan stooped to cover his modesty, insisting his €5,483 payment “is not the biggest one in the world”. Bernard clearly had trouble getting his head around the view that size doesn’t matter, it’s really what you do with it – and giving it back to the state was the only show in town. Soon even some of the more astute FFers realised which way the wind was blowing and offered up the nice little earner.

And then there was Bertie.

Speculation swirled around Leinster House that it would be fierce hard to separate Mr Ahern and his money – and when his TD brother Noel went on Newstalk to denounce the media “witch hunt” that was burning pension books at the stake, the omens appeared poor. But Bertie still has one eye on the Áras and the other on the Dublin mayoralty, so the €83,000 was handed over. Bet that really hurt. Maybe we should start a whip-round for him?

Through it all, Brian Cowen floundered as usual, buffeted by events rather than shaping them. He mumbled about pension “property rights” and refused to take any action against those of his TDs still enraging public opinion. He grumbled about the need for natural justice, oblivious to the anger at the unnatural state of events that would let his deputies persist in drawing down the lucrative “retirement” package while still coining it in the Dáil. And he sneered at the very suggestion to ban the practice as no one would realistically dare take legal action to protect such an obscenely out-of-kilter financial package.

The “pensioners” were defenceless as the payments were no longer defendable and they could well afford to lose the loot – but Mr Cowen can scarcely afford to lose any more credibility like this.