The Labour Party promised us they would be different and now this....

That Tánaiste Joan Burton has used an ‘exceptional’ clause in the new public appointment rules to personally appoint former trade union leader, David Begg, as the chairman of the Pensions Authority, thereby bypassing the public appointments process, is further evidence that cronyism is still widespread in government circles despite what we had been promised.

If it wasn’t such a serious matter it would be a joke. Mr Begg, a prominent Labour Party member, is appointed to a plum job by the Labour party leader in the dying days of this administration.

He even had the audacity to label the €20,000 salary as not being a crock of gold, yet 125,000 of the workforce are depending on a salary less than that.