Pension furore: Cowen on another planet

THE furore over the payments to EU Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn once again highlights the complete other worldliness of Taoiseach Brian Cowen and his view of just where his wages are coming from.

I am owner/manager of a small to medium sized enterprise. At a recent gathering of my peers I found many of them on the verge of despair. One told me his only hope of getting finance to keep his family business going for another year was to sell his home. What will he sell the following year?

Meanwhile, our Taoiseach, for political reasons, appointed a retired member of his party to be our EU commissioner and seemed completely devoid of any sense of the state of the nation’s finances in that he did not ask her to agree to forego her existing entitlements at least until her term as commissioner had ended.

Owner/managers of SMEs have to give personal guarantees on all forms of credit extended to them – if they can get any. But the Taoiseach has his overdraft to run this state indemnified by the taxpayer. That these fiascoes continue with our Taoiseach is indicative to me of just why we find ourselves in this appalling financial condition.

Last weekend he said it was not for him to ask Máire Geoghegan-Quinn to forego her entitlements. Well, if it wasn’t, perhaps he could indicate whose job he thought it might have been.

Having named that person, he could then hand over his seal of office to him or her and go before it is too late?

Jerry Kiersey

Newcastle

Co Dublin