Self-serving Kiely deserves little charity

Paul Kiely is a man who got around. He was a very busy bee in the charity and voluntary sector. Chief executive of this company; secretary of another; and board member of a third — all of which were interlinked. A man like that could do with a rest after his strenuous efforts, and what better way to kick back than with an obscene pension.

The detail of how the Central Remedial Clinic’s board ransacked charity coffers to send Kiely on his way was shocking, but not surprising. Kiely was retiring as chief executive of the CRC three years ahead of schedule. He needed a pension to reflect his entitlement, based on a salary of €230,000, to which he also felt entitled. This required the board to come up with €740,000 for him, which was duly completed by dipping into the coffers of the CRC’s charity arm, the Friends of the CRC.

What was shocking was the scale, of both the amount appropriated from charity money, and Kiely’s sense of entitlement. To put it in context, his pension of circa €90,000 per annum would be unattainable in the private sector this side of millionaire status. In the public sector, you’d want to have made it close to Secretary General status in a department to be within reach of that amount. Otherwise, only long-serving ministers could hope to pull in that wodge of cash, and there is widespread feeing that such pensions for politicians are nothing short of feather bedding.