The cost of high office

Brian Cowen left office with a total package worth more than €310,000 last year, while Bertie Ahern walked away with over €299,000 — all funded by the taxpayer.

New figures published yesterday reveal for the first time the full picture of the lucrative pensions and pay-offs which the last cabinet received.

The Department of Finance figures show the pensions paid to former ministers and office-holders, such as presidents and attorneys-general, in 2011.

When combined with previously published figures on the separate TD pensions many of them receive, as well as lump sums and severance pay, the full picture emerges.

Mr Cowen, for example, received a ministerial pension of €79,738.97 last year. But he also received a TD pension of €17,544, a €159,873 lump sum, plus termination payments.

All told, Mr Cowen received €310,469 in 2011 before tax. He did not make any voluntary contribution to the State, the documents indicate.

Mr Ahern received a ministerial pension of €83,341.82, of which he voluntarily surrendered €14,618.18. However, he also received a TD pension of €17,544, lump sum of €159,873, and other payments. All told, he received €299,454.

* Former tánaiste Mary Coughlan received payments totalling €242,131;

* Former justice minister Dermot Ahern received €294,412;

* Former communications minister Noel Dempsey received €297,590;

* Former arts minister Mary Hanafin received a €282,539;

* Ex-PD leader Mary Harney, another former tánaiste, received €298,893.

Separately, the figures show the State pays six-figure pensions to former office-holders who continue to work outside politics.

Former taoiseach and Fine Gael leader John Bruton, now chairman of IFSC Ireland, received a combined ministerial and TD pension of €141,728 in 2011, for example.

Former tánaiste and Labour leader Dick Spring, currently a public interest director at AIB, got €120,997 last year.

Fianna Fáil former minister Charlie McCreevy, who sits on Ryanair and other private boards, got €119,067. Former tánaiste, attorney general and PD leader Michael McDowell received €203,928 in ministerial and TD pension payments, although €142,877 of this owed to underpayments from previous years due to an administrative error.

Yesterday’s figures showed many former ministers continue to retain all their pension entitlements, despite appeals to gift some money back to the State because of the perilous condition of the public finances.

Others surrendered either some or all of their 2011 entitlements.

Former president Mary Robinson received a combined presidential and Oireachtas pension of €174,883 and returned €15,499 of it. Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin surrendered all €61,318 of the severance payments to which he was entitled after resigning from Cabinet last year.

A number of the current Cabinet members also surrendered ministerial pension entitlements which had kicked in from previous stints in government, including Taoiseach Enda Kenny (€2,050) and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore (€979).

Some former ministers who are no longer in the Dáil or Seanad but are still working in politics or elsewhere also surrendered their ministerial pensions.

They included EU Commissioner and former Fianna Fáil minister Máire Geoghegan- Quinn who surrendered all €59,895 to which she was entitled last year.