Shatter refuses to say if he will take €70k ‘golden goodbye’

Alan Shatter has refused to say if he will draw down €70,000 in ministerial severance payments — despite requests to do so by Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

Government ministers also refused to say yesterday if Mr Shatter should be forced to give up his right to the golden goodbye payment.

It has emerged that the Government delayed signing in legislation which was meant to end the practice of former ministers getting lump sum severance payments.

Despite the legislation being agreed and passed earlier this year to end such payments, Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin only signed a statutory instrument for the change on May 15 — a week after Mr Shatter quit his post, the Department of Finance confirmed.

This means Mr Shatter is the last minister ever to be allowed draw down the payment, which is paid to departing ministers.

Severance payments, until now, were offered to outgoing ministers in lieu of having lost their salary immediately, and after spending short periods in office.

It is usually paid in increments over a number of years, depending on how long someone has been in office.

The €70,000 Mr Shatter can claim is also on top of his €87,000 TD’s salary. Previous ministers have declined to draw down the payments.

Former minister Lucinda Creighton was entitled to a €46,000 severance pay package after resigning over the Government’s abortion legislation last year. She declined to take the payment.

In a similar manner, Labour TD Róisín Shortall, who resigned as junior health minister in 2012, declined a €33,000 payment.

Mr Shatter is entitled to €70,282 in payments.

Messages for Mr Shatter through his Dáil office were not returned yesterday. It was also reported that a spokesman for Mr Shatter refused to comment.

However, Transport Minister Leo Varadkar said it made sense for his former cabinet colleague to waive the severance payment, though he said he did not want to kick his former colleague when he was down.

“That’s up to him, but it was legislation passed by the Dáil, supported by deputy Shatter and voted for by him. I think it would make sense if he did that.”

Mr Kenny said his recommendation to Mr Shatter was that he should not accept his “technical entitlement” to the payment but he could not force the Dublin South TD on the issue.

“The point is that this government made a number of decisions in this area and the Government decided to abolish all severance pay for all ministers. The Government as a unit decided that,” he said.

“The legislation was prepared, was approved by government, was put through the house and signed into law. For whatever technical reason it wasn’t signed until last week.”

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