Healy-Rae ‘cannot repay’ extra €15k

Retired Kerry TD Jackie Healy-Rae has unwittingly received €15,000 too much in pension payments from the Oireachtas and said he is not in a position to repay the monies owed.

A miscalculation has led to Mr Healy-Rae and 12 other politicians being given pension payments of a combined €80,000 more than they were entitled.

Among the others are two members of the last government, Mary Coughlan and Dermot Ahern. Ms Coughlan received €7,740 too much and Mr Ahern was overpaid by €2,762.

Patricia Ryan, widow of former finance minister Brian Lenihan, received an overpayment of €4,300 in her widow’s pension. She has already arranged to make a repayment.

The overpayments arose because the pensions were calculated allowing for the politician’s membership of committees or other positions, even though those payments had been stopped.

It is understood the mistake was uncovered last September, yet the politicians involved were only told of the overpayments by letter in the last few weeks.

Mr Healy-Rae was quoted in the Sunday media as saying he was not in a position to repay the €14,516 extra he received — the biggest of all the overpayments.

He said whoever was responsible for the mistake “should make the call on this” and that he had worked hard on the committees and earned all the money he had been paid.

Among the roles he took on while in the Dáil was a period as the chairman of the Oireachtas Social and Family Affairs Committee.

He said he has consulted an accountant and will have further discussions before deciding his next move.

The overpayments range from Mr Healy-Rae’s as the largest down to €1,862. The next biggest payments were to former Fianna Fáil TD John Ellis (€13,211) and former Fine Gael TD Paul Connaughton (€12,055).

According to the Irish Mail On Sunday, which secured the information through the Freedom of Information Act, only one of the 13 has repaid the money so far.

This is not the first time a politician has been inadvertently caught up in a pension payment debacle.

Last year, it emerged that Fianna Fáil TD John Browne was paid a ministerial pension to which he was not entitled.