Pension top-up - Government needs to act decisively

Kieran Mulvey, the chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission, had denounced the proposed €1.5 million pension top-up being accorded to the Bank of Ireland chief executive, Richie Boucher.

Mr Boucher has now decided to waive his right to retire on pension at 55. The proposed pension top-up had created a negative climate in industrial relations and would have make it harder to get the Croke Park pay deal accepted by the rank and file of the unions.

The debate within the unions on the agreement is being dominated by anger over revelations surrounding payments to key bankers, according to Mr Mulvey. In fact, he suggested that this anger could lead to the agreement being voted down.

Payments to top executives in banks are made against the backdrop of regular employees being asked to take severe cuts in wages, pensions, and more than 400,000 people are out of work. Even though bankers have been largely responsible for undermining the economy, the government has been rescuing the banks by essentially putting the country in hock for decades to come.

Mr Mulvey asked what the public interest directors appointed to the boards of banks were doing about these exorbitant payments, and why they had not been called before an Oireachtas Committee to account for these matters. We have already had the obscene spectacle of the golden handshake and lavish pension arrangement accorded to the disgraced director of Fás, Rody Molloy. Yet nobody in Government seems to have learned anything from the public outrage over the obscenity of those payments.

The Government appointed Joe Walsh, the former Minister for Agriculture, to the board of the Bank of Ireland by the Government. What had he been doing about the pension top-up?

An Taoiseach Brian Cowen agreed that this issue will make it harder for unions to accept the pay deal. He had said it would be “helpful in public perception terms” if Mr Boucher had refused to accept his pension top-up.

Members of Government have been essentially been fobbing off their responsibilities on others. Ultimately they are accountable and cannot duck that responsibility. They should act decisively, rather than expect others to provide the leadership and proper example.