McAleese should give up her pension

BRENDAN Howlin’s notion of moral persuasion might get a suitable fillip if President Mary McAleese leads by example and foregoes her unsustainable pension of €150,000 per annum for the rest of her life.

Mrs McAleese will have received over €5,000,000 in pay and perks during her two terms in office. With little or no expenses, no doubt she will have saved and invested the bulk of this vast sum which will yield a handsome dividend without recourse to additional pension payments on the backs of the broken taxpayer. While the president should be given some praise for her role with communities in the North, her legacy will be tainted by her association with Fianna Fáil and her abject failure to protect us from the worst decisions of her colleagues in that party. She could have used her constitutional position and refused to sign those well-documented decisions which have plunged our country into bankruptcy and consigned our sovereignty to strangers.

Relinquishing her pension voluntarily would show the way to her equally fortunate ministerial colleagues and senior civil servants who have recently retired with equally unjustified and unsustainable pensions.

John Cooney

Wilton

Cork