Put tax on bloated state pensions

YOUR report (News, Sept 12) about the laissez-fare attitude of the HSE with state funds can hardly come as a surprise to anyone at this stage.

We know that we have a bevy of ex-TDs, ministers, senior public servants, etc — most of whom have not even reached retirement age — who are in receipt of massive yearly payouts and it appears that the new government is every bit as reluctant to intervene and end this disgrace as the last one was.

Any difficulties regarding changing the rules retrospectively can easily be circumvented by the introduction of a special tax to be levied on all government payouts that exceed an amount that is greater than four times that of the basic state pension.

This special tax rate should be set at 95% so as to claw back as much as possible where the recipient refuses to voluntarily forego these huge, unjustifiable pensions. Perhaps, you might consider publishing a complete list of all those who received these huge lump sum payments and are currently in receipt of these massive pensions.

That said, there is one aspect of the report which demands a thorough investigation and that was the practise of handing out “contracts” without any tendering procedure.

Any such contracts that were given to persons connected to the HSE or the Department of Health, such as employees, associates of the minister or so called “union third parties”, should be identified and fully explained.

We know that Mary Harney’s privatisation agenda has caused great and lasting damage to the health service.

We may not be able to greatly lessen the pain we are all facing, but unless we get to the truth of what went on, we leave ourselves exposed to a repeat performance of bad governance down the line.

Jim O’Sullivan

Rathedmond

Sligo