Minister Martin Cullen's pension

S

Slash

Registered User
Messages
329
Yes, it's another thread about TD pay and benefits.

Martin Cullen will receive a severance payment of nearly €80,000 (per today's Irish Independent):

PLUS a salary of nearly €200,000 for the remainder of 2010, and nearly 100K for 2011;

PLUS a combined TD and Minister pension of €106,000 FOR LIFE! (per Vincent Brown last night)

Everyone is entitled to a decent pension, but this sort of thing is making fools of us all. MC has only been a TD since 1987.

Then again, when you dedicate yourself to the work of the constituency, with absolutely no thought for your own benefit, you deserve to be recognised as a true patriot. A leader. A role model.

According to some political commentators, the real agenda behind MC's resignation is not ill health, but that it affords MC the opportunity to pursue certain newspapers for damages for alleged libel in relation to the "Monica Leech Matter". This is something that he would be unlikely to do as a sitting TD. ML was awarded nearly 2 million in damages (still under appeal by the newspapers), and MC reckons he is entitled to some of that action too. Watch this space.
 
I don’t have much time for Martin Cullen, I think he’s out of his depth some of the time and just too much of a FF hack most of the time. However, I was listening to Joe Duffy (while driving to Limerick) the day the Monica Leech story was being discussed and I pulled over and called the radio station. It was the first and only time I have ever done so.
The conversation was about how much she was being paid, as if it was all into her pocket. I said to the researcher/receptionist that what was being said was grossly unfair and, for example, did the payments to Ms Leech include her own travel and accommodation expenses. Did it cover payments to other service providers/advisors that she was subcontracting. Did it cover the cost of work done by others within her office/organisation?

I have no idea what the answers to the above are but what Joe Duffy did that day was outrageous, and the courts agreed. He made no attempt to find out the full story and present the facts. Martin Cullen is a public figure and he was very publically and very unfairly humiliated.
 
Regardless of what many think of Martin Cullen, I feel a lot of sympathy for Monica Leech. The newspapers nearly destroyed that womans life, they should be made pay for their reckless journalism. I wouldnt blame Cullen if he went after them too.
 
Whilst having no time for Minister Cullen and his party I think it should be pointed out that he broke his neck in a car crash some years back and spent a considerable time in hospital thereafter and to see him struggle recently on tv and on the streets of Waterford is painful to watch.
To suggest that he is more concerned with pursuing the Monica Leech agenda is ill informed.
 
I propose that Cullen's pension is paid to him by way of eVoting machines. Give him all €54 million worth of the machines he ordered, and let him sell them off to generate his pension.
 
Martin Cullen should not be entitled to any pension untill he is 65 and then only one pension. His salary should stop as soon as he retires and why in God's name he is been paid for next year too? No wonder people are so keen to get elected! Let him live on his savings until he is 65 if need be just llike ordinary Joe Soaps
 
great that he has decided to retire as he has done nothing for a number of years.. hopefully a few of the others will follow soon as opposed to snoozing in the back benches

we can complain all we want on here.. but at end of the day these ministers setup these nest eggs and will never reduce or abolish them.
 
Purple said:
Martin Cullen is a public figure and he was very publically and very unfairly humiliated.
Click to expand...


I agree but if the contract that Monica Leech was openly advertised then the outcome could have been different.
 
God almighty but ye sound like some pack of whingers........give the man a break. Like or loathe his political abilities there is no need to dance on his grave......

How effective are ye all in your job? For all any of us know ye could all be a pack of wasters sitting at your desks writing anonymous nasty posts.

The bile in Ireland is frightening at times
 
Slash said:
Yes, it's another thread about TD pay and benefits.

Martin Cullen will receive a severance payment of nearly €80,000 (per today's Irish Independent):

PLUS a salary of nearly €200,000 for the remainder of 2010, and nearly 100K for 2011;

PLUS a combined TD and Minister pension of €106,000 FOR LIFE! (per Vincent Brown last night)

Everyone is entitled to a decent pension, but this sort of thing is making fools of us all. MC has only been a TD since 1987.

Then again, when you dedicate yourself to the work of the constituency, with absolutely no thought for your own benefit, you deserve to be recognised as a true patriot. A leader. A role model.

According to some political commentators, the real agenda behind MC's resignation is not ill health, but that it affords MC the opportunity to pursue certain newspapers for damages for alleged libel in relation to the "Monica Leech Matter". This is something that he would be unlikely to do as a sitting TD. ML was awarded nearly 2 million in damages (still under appeal by the newspapers), and MC reckons he is entitled to some of that action too. Watch this space.
Click to expand...

It's unfair to single out Martin Cullen, if people feel that strongly about it they should start a thread listing the benefits enjoyed by TDs and lets decide whether they're reasonable or not.

There's far too many personalised attacks these days. What started with the bankers, extended to the civil service and can now be applied to anyone. It's a horrible aspect of the post tiger era. The point can be equally well made by looking at the cold facts of the appropriateness of remuneration levels for TDs and minsters. Slinging mud at TDs, Civil Servants, etc in addition to this is unnecessary.

As for the E-voting fiasco, the fiasco for me is that people are so quick to knock the idea. The fiasco was not addressing the shortcomings of the system. Unfortunately the luddites got their way and it will be decades before it is tried again.

We should have e-voting.
 
DerKaiser said:
As for the E-voting fiasco, the fiasco for me is that people are so quick to knock the idea. The fiasco was not addressing the shortcomings of the system. Unfortunately the luddites got their way and it will be decades before it is tried again.
Click to expand...
The 'luddites who got their way' include many people and organisations who know quite a bit about implementing information systems. The 'luddites' (including the Irish Computer Society, experienced IT professionals, leading IT academics) could see that;
1) There was no business case?
2) The chosen system was completely flawed in many aspects of its design, but particularly in the absence of a verifiable audit trail.
DerKaiser said:
We should have e-voting.
Click to expand...
Why? What benefit(s) will result from e-voting?
 
WarrenBuffet said:
The Irish Computer Society - that much respected, recognised and lauded institute.
Click to expand...
I'm starting to think that Warren is actually the bould Martin himself come back to haunt us. This is one of Martin's classic tactics - when he runs out of arguments (which generally doesn't take very long), he moves to attacking the man, not the ball.

So Warren, is that really your best shot - a vague, generalised slur against the Irish Computer Society with no evidence and no relevance to the issue in hand?

Or do you actually want to engage on the detail of the eVoting debate?
 
Complainer said:
Why? What benefit(s) will result from e-voting?
Click to expand...
Quicker and more accurate results? Why do use computers for anything?

I think it a shame we just gave up on the idea because the wrong system was chosen.

Any proper IT project is subject to testing and will not be abandoned after the first batch of tests highlight problems
 
DerKaiser said:
Quicker and more accurate results? Why do use computers for anything?
Click to expand...
OK - let's look into this further.

Quicker - So you reckon it is worth a state investment of €50m approx to have results on a Friday night instead of a Saturday night? What is the difference? Why is 'quicker' important here?

More accurate - What problems do we have with the accuracy of the current system (where every vote is counted in public scrutiny, with a pile of people checking the work of the counters)?


DerKaiser said:
I think it a shame we just gave up on the idea because the wrong system was chosen.
Click to expand...
That's not what happened. It is not a case of 'the wrong system'. What happened here is that there was no business case or rationale for the project. There was no project governance. The system was tested, but the test results (specifically the results of the end-to-end tests) were not published, until FOI requests were made years later. The full results of the trials in the 2002 general election (including the huge gap between the number of votes cast and the number of votes counted) was not published until FOI requests were made years later. When the gaping holes in the project started coming into the public domain (Dec 2003), the Minister rushed through the purchase of the hardware, costing the state about €50m.
DerKaiser said:
Any proper IT project is subject to testing and will not be abandoned after the first batch of tests highlight problems
Click to expand...
There are times when the right thing to do is to abandon a project. It takes more guts to stand up and say 'this is wrong' than to rumble on with a project that has no business case. This was a solution looking for a problem, a 'toys for boys' project. It cost the state €50m, and Minister Cullen is responsible.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top