Our overpaid civil servants must be held accountable for their actions

DERMOT McCARTHY is around long enough to know that this week’s controversy about the extraordinary pension and pay-off he received in July will pass.

It is nothing for Ireland’s former top civil servant to worry about: he will be able to continue to draw his €142,000 annual pension undisturbed, his €570,000 lump sum to ease his way into retirement will not be reclaimed.

That’s what happens in this country. There is shouting and roaring for a couple of days after such rewards for the elite are disclosed and then nothing happens until the next revelation is made and we go through the same rigmarole again. Only the previous week we learned of the €260,000 in expenses that Bertie Ahern has claimed since he stepped down as Taoiseach in May 2008, aged 57. This comes on top of his own super six-figure pension, which he has been able to claim since that date, even though most have to wait until 60 at best, or 65, before they get such largesse. Will it change for those who were responsible for the mess that we’re in, where money has to be borrowed from the IMF to pay these pensions and lump sums they claim? You can bet it won’t.