5,000 a week pension !!

th3 s1aught3r

:mad:

They are considering cutting the dole which is 196 euro a week but this **** is still going on

The former boss of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) Michael Somers retired with a pension package in excess of €1.1m in the first year and will receive an annual pension of more than €265,000 for the rest of his life -- making him the highest-paid public sector pensioner in the history of the State.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/somers-breaks-pension-record-2383013.html

Sheeps

kill him

Sheeps

not really though

Ruu_Old

He deserves a good thrashing!

epgc3fyqirnbsx

Well in fairness, he has become accustomed to a high standard of living and as such he requires that pension to maintain his lifestyle

Biggins

Tip of the Ice-berg: http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=68533276&postcount=24

AnonoBoy

Ah sure them fiends on the dole would just waste their money on ivory back scratchers if they got more.

challengemaster

265k/year vs ~3bn/year

Yeah, MUCH worse for the economy. They should totally leave the dole alone :rolleyes:

skyhighflyer

The NTMA do an excellent job and this man deserves his pension. Despite FF's ineptitude, they managed to keep us afloat this year by taking the opportunity to issue bonds when market conditions were favourable.

They also front-loaded our finances in the beginning of the year, which meant we were able to take a break from the market when yields shot up to ~6% this year. If they hadn't, we'd quite possibly be bankrupt right now.

Do you know anything of the NTMA and its work or are you just annoyed that a professional who did excellent work in service of the State is well paid?

snubbleste

"I'm entitled to it"

galwayrush

It sems the norm for Government cronies/ friends, us suckers have to pay for it.

th3 s1aught3r

skyhighflyer wrote: »

Do you know anything of the NTMA and its work or are you just annoyed that a professional who did excellent work in service of the State is well paid?

He was well paid, read the article
Explain to me why he now needs 5k a week to live on as a pension?

galwayrush

skyhighflyer wrote: »

The NTMA do an excellent job and this man deserves his pension. Despite FF's ineptitude, they managed to keep us afloat this year by taking the opportunity to issue bonds when market conditions were favourable.

They also front-loaded our finances in the beginning of the year, which meant we were able to take a break from the market when yields shot up to ~6% this year. If they hadn't, we'd quite possibly be bankrupt right now.

Do you know anything of the NTMA and its work or are you just annoyed that a professional who did excellent work in service of the State is well paid?

Why should someone get so much for just doing their job? With all the 'necessary' cut backs, how the **** can we afford to pay rewards like this????

Besides, a lot of our bonds were bought up by our own bailed out banks, they receive bail out money and get to profit on it at our expense on top.

skyhighflyer

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

He was well paid, read the article
Explain to me why he now needs 5k a week to live on as a pension?

He doesn't need 5k a week to live on. Nobody does. But that's a separate question from whether they deserve it or not. Bear in mind that unlike a lot of other civil servants, this man could easily have made that amount in a year had he decided to work for an investment bank rather than spend his career in service of the state.

skyhighflyer

galwayrush wrote: »

Why should someone get so much for just doing their job? With all the 'necessary' cut backs, how the **** can we afford to pay rewards like this????

Besides, a lot of our bonds were bought up by our own bailed out banks, they receive bail out money and get to profit on it at our expense on top.

Wrong. Irish banks actually have very little exposure to Irish bonds. The UK and France are far more exposed to us than we are. I think Irish banks only hold around 8 percent of outstanding govvie bonds. although I'm open to correction, and I'd be surprised if they bought any at all during the last few issues.

As I explained above, he's worth the money in my view. Given how much we shell out to judges and senior civil servants who do next to nothing compared to his role, I think it's justified.

PeakOutput

fair play to him he hasnt done anything wrong

the culture of the public sector is wrong not the people who work their and take advantage of it

if someone offered me a job today with those terms and conditions id take it no matter what the rest of the country thought

PeakOutput

galwayrush wrote: »

Why should someone get so much for just doing their job? With all the 'necessary' cut backs, how the **** can we afford to pay rewards like this????

we cant but thats not his fault is it?

he was offered a contract, he accepted it and signed it and fulfilled his part of the deal so therefore he deserves the reward part of the contract

its the contracts with hese great terms and conditions and the culture that creates them that are the problem

De Dannan

skyhighflyer wrote: »

The NTMA do an excellent job and this man deserves his pension.

This is the same tripe we are being fed constantly by politicians and people who are benefiting from these huge inequalities
who is paying these salaries and pensions anyway ????
This man was paid a HUGE salary and is now entitled to 5k a week. Im sick of the constant 'hes entitled to it you know' ****e. NO ONE is entitled to 5,000 a week pension, paid by the state I dont care who they are
It is obvious that we are NEVER going to get out of this economic hole with the current political system, where people actually seem to name their own salaries and politicians can vote for pay increases, hmmm

These politicians, civil servents and bankers sit there laughing at the rest of us and our inability to change the system.
We have an ex leader who once addressed both house of US government and who tells us he brought peace, now sits in a cupboard for a tabloid rag, bankers who leg it to the US to hide from the law, NTMA boss who did such a great job even though we are in an economic mess
please :rolleyes:

polkadots1900

there are many,many, many public sector pensions and salaries like this...it needs to change

Fighting Irish

lol, i hate everyone that makes more money than me, these people ruined the country!!!!!!!!!111

cleremy jarkson

Even if this guys pension was docked to 100 grand a year, which to be honest is probably a fair enough amount given the importance of his position, the 160 grand a year we'd be saving is negligible in the grand scheme of things.

There's 450000 on the dole but probably only a few 1000 of what could be called fat cats (who already pay a sizeable chunk of the country's income tax).

We all know social welfare need to be cut but I can't help but LOL at how grave the situation is because nobody will accept any of the cuts this December.

PeakOutput

De Dannan wrote: »

NO ONE is entitled to 5,000 a week pension, paid by the state I dont care who they are

why not?

Wertz

The one thing I don't understand about cases like this (and it's certainly not ioslated) is why if these guys are on such huge salaries that they aren't in private pension schemes...I mean if the State pays that level of wage to an employee over a course of a 20+ yr career, why can't they pay into a private pension and reap the tax breaks that that allows for....no, instead they are paid the huge salary and the defined benefit pension both from state coffers as coughed up by Joe Taxpayer.
Also, don't these guys have savings and share/property portfolios to live off?

For people making the point that docking a euro from each of the 450K plus dole recipients does more to reduce expenditure than slashing Somer's pension, that's fine...but such high levels of remuneration are seen as overly lavish when placed alongside the cuts being proposed.

This man might have been worth both the salary and the pension...how many out there including many of your current and ex TDs aren't? How many others in the civl service waltz off into the dusk with a small fortune leaving the bill with the rest of us?
Such imbalances serve only to diminish the trust of the general population in the system that is supposed to serve them but seemingly only serves itself and it's closed circle of cohorts.

Son Of A Vidic

Sheeps wrote: »

kill him

Rob him!

Aswerty

The fat cats are the guys on the 196 euro dole. I get 150 euro on the dole because for some reason age discrimination with respect to young people is grand. I could do all sorts with that extra 46 euro a week.

High earning public workers should be entitled to wages that allow them the same standard of living as high earning private workers because otherwise nobody decent will be attracted to the upper echelons of public service. Of course that's in a world where the most competent climb to the top of the ladder.

th3 s1aught3r

Some people have mentioned that if we dont pay public servents high salaries and benefits then we wont attract talent into the public sector
How is this working out so far ?
We pay huge salaries and benefits but still we seem to get gross incompetence in many positions
If they want to earn big money in the private sector let them, I have a funny feeling many of them would be sacked long ago

PeakOutput

Wertz wrote: »

The one thing I don't understand about cases like this (and it's certainly not ioslated) is why if these guys are on such huge salaries that they aren't in private pension schemes...

why would they when they were offered such a great pension by the state?

instead they are paid the huge salary and the defined benefit pension both from state coffers as coughed up by Joe Taxpayer.

thats the package they wree offered by the state? why should they be demonised for accepting it?

Also, don't these guys have savings and share/property portfolios to live off?

probably, but what they do with the money they are paid is none of anyones business.

i have no problem with agreeing that pay and pensions over the entire public sector are ridicolous and need to be changed. i have a serious problem with the demonisation of individuals who did nothing wrong but work for an extravagantly paying goverment.

PeakOutput

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

If they want to earn big money in the private sector let them, I have a funny feeling many of them would be sacked long ago

the problem isnt a lack of talent its a lack of accountability. this leads to laziness which leads to mistakes and eventually to people simply not caring about their work as they can never be fired

working for the goverment should be well paid but it should also only be for the top performers and if you are not performing you should get the sack not this job for life crap

Son Of A Vidic

Aswerty wrote: »

.....High earning public workers should be entitled to wages that allow them the same standard of living as high earning private workers because otherwise nobody decent will be attracted to the upper echelons of public service. Of course that's in a world where the most competent climb to the top of the ladder.

Unfortunately the competent have not been attracted to the higher echelons of the public service. Which is one of the reasons this corrupt little sh1t hole is in the state it's in.

Odysseus

polkadots1900 wrote: »

there are many,many, many public sector pensions and salaries like this...it needs to change

I don't know about that, but most publice sector pensions are not like that. No one person in the building I work in [25+] will have the 40 years service needed for a full pension. Just want to add this before this turns into all public sector employees will be retiring on massive pensions.

Mine will be so big, I will also be entitled to the state pensions.

Sykk

skyhighflyer wrote: »

The NTMA do an excellent job and this man deserves his pension. Despite FF's ineptitude, they managed to keep us afloat this year by taking the opportunity to issue bonds when market conditions were favourable.

They also front-loaded our finances in the beginning of the year, which meant we were able to take a break from the market when yields shot up to ~6% this year. If they hadn't, we'd quite possibly be bankrupt right now.

Do you know anything of the NTMA and its work or are you just annoyed that a professional who did excellent work in service of the State is well paid?

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the purple tin

Barack Obama only makes about 20,000 euro more than that per year :eek:
Just who does comes up with these massive salaries and pensions?
Did this NTMA bloke originally get offered a 5,000 a week pension or did he have to haggle it up to that figure before he signed his contract?

th3 s1aught3r

the purple tin wrote: »

Did this NTMA bloke originally get offered a 5,000 a week pension or did he have to haggle it up to that figure before he signed his contract?

He probably got to name his price. Its nobodys money to these guys, it just taxpayers money

randylonghorn

challengemaster wrote: »

265k/year vs ~3bn/year

Yeah, MUCH worse for the economy. They should totally leave the dole alone :rolleyes:

So because, as a result of the hubris and ineptitude of our political and economic leaders, the numbers of unemployed claiming social welfare has shot up, as therefore has the overall bill, the solution is to cut social welfare and continue to pay huge salaries and pensions to those self-same political and economic leaders, simply because the overall bill for that will be smaller than the SW bill?

How does that constitute either logic or justice?!

There will probably have to be cuts in SW, but that will be a lot more acceptable to the ordinary people of this country if they see their "leaders" actually leading, and taking a sharp axe to those inflated salaries and pensions.


In fairness, Michael Somers has shown himself to be a pretty capable guy, and one capable of independent thought and of actually articulating it publicly even when it was unpopular with the politicos, and there is no reason why he shouldn't be entitled to retire on a decent pension and live comfortably.

He doesn't need €5,000 a week though, nor anything like it.

skyhighflyer

Sykk wrote: »

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Wow, an ASCII facepalm! You are so funny and original, you'd think that the 4,396th time it was posted it would have stopped being funny but no, this is the internet meme that keeps on giving :pac: Did you think people would think you were clever for posting that?

How about some reasoned argument instead? Or hell, even a post with any content at all? I'm assuming because all you posted was a stupid ASCII you don't have anything to say on this issue, but I'm always happy to be proved wrong.

RMD

He doesn't need 5,000 euro a week, definitely not. It's not his fault though, it's the ****ing retard in charge who allowed him to get a pension of 5,000 euro a week.

Blaming this man himself for having a high pension is pure idiotic, blame the people in charge. I doubt very much anyone here would turn down a 5,000 euro a week pension if offered one.

Absurdum

Bank of Ireland pumped €1.5m into the pension pot of Mr Boucher, who has an option to retire in four years' time at the age of 55 with an annual pension of €367,570.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/lenihan-to-face-grilling-on-bankers-pension-topup-2143012.html

Wertz

PeakOutput wrote: »

i have no problem with agreeing that pay and pensions over the entire public sector are ridicolous and need to be changed. i have a serious problem with the demonisation of individuals who did nothing wrong but work for an extravagantly paying goverment.

...and I have no problem agreeing with the bits you decided to quote.
I have raised a similar view in a thread on the pay of RTE's top "stars" re: pay...and have said similar to you....that anyone offered such levels of salary and associated perks and pensions would be crazy to turn it down.
I am not demonising Mr Somers (in fact from what I've read, he seems to have been at least worth the wage, and possibly saw what was coming at anglo before anyone in government, although why he chose not to inform some of his paymasters at the time reminas a mystery ), I am criticising the system that has allowed the culture of high salary and insane levels of pension, that now seeks to cut the pretty basic levels of welfare that so many people are reliant upon in the reality of Ireland 2010 and onwards.
More stable doors swinging shut...same as it ever was in political Ireland.


[edit] Oh and just to add this:

RTE news article wrote:

But she reserved some harsh criticism for the way the salary was decided. The NTMA's advisory committee comes up with the figure and the Minister for Finance signs off on it.

She said the remuneration process was quite extraordinary, and she criticised the fact that there was no paper trail supporting it, and no officials present at the meeting between the Minister and the chairperson of the NTMA's remuneration committee.

Mr Somers' overall pay for 2007 cannot be revealed because the department has no record whatsoever of the figure. (!!!)

My emphasis
http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0917/ntma2-business.html

No paper trail? Seemingly no accountabiltity of who in fact decided on the salary?
This sounds just too much like an Old Boy's Club tye arrangment or something that was signed off on in a liquid lunch in Buswells.
Again, not to blame Somers...but WTF is going on when people getting 500K a year weren't even having it decided by some transparent and publically accesible process?

squeakyduck

This is the type of pension I hope to get when I'm due it! I want to be a very rich old lady with wanderlust and own several overseas properties and live out of the country for 6 months of the year to avoid tax and all that shiite!:rolleyes:

th3 s1aught3r

Wertz wrote: »

...No paper trail? Seemingly no accountabiltity of who in fact decided on the salary?

Thats exactly right. In a private enterprise its the owners, or managers on behalf of owner, who decide on the pay you get, its their money and they are very careful with it.
When we enter the public arena its nobodys money, its taxpayers money. So a manager in the public sector will award what they like, at the end of the day what do they care ??

Wertz

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

Thats exactly right. In a private enterprise its the owners, or managers on behalf of owner, who decide on the pay you get, its their money and they are very careful with it.
When we enter the public arena its nobodys money, its taxpayers money. So a manager in the public sector will award what they like, at the end of the day what do they care ??

Whilst true, I don't find any of that as disturbing as this bit:

Mr Somers' overall pay for 2007 cannot be revealed because the department has no record whatsoever of the figure.

Currently sitting here trying to do my tax return...I don't have any employees but if I did, I'd sure as hell be required by some Revenue legislation somewhere to have not only a record of what I paid an employee, but numerous other details about them and their work record for the year, alongside receipts and financial statements to back all of that up. If that is the case for a private employer dealing with someone on an average industrila wage, then why isn't it the same at the €550K +bonus salaried in the civil service?

It's these double standards that piss me off the most.
Consolidated debt for all, but a differing set of rules for the most highly paid at the top of the state bodies that let all of this madness occur on their watch.

th3 s1aught3r

Wertz wrote: »

Whilst true, I don't find any of that as disturbing as this bit:

Mr Somers' overall pay for 2007 cannot be revealed because the department has no record whatsoever of the figure.

Currently sitting here trying to do my tax return...I don't have any employees but if I did, I'd sure as hell be required by some Revenue legislation somewhere to have not only a record of what I paid an employee, but numerous other details about them and their work record for the year, alongside receipts and financial statements to back all of that up. If that is the case for a private employer dealing with someone on an average industrila wage, then why isn't it the same at the €550K +bonus salaried in the civil service?

It's these double standards that piss me off the most.
Consolidated debt for all, but a differing set of rules for the most highly paid at the top of the state bodies that let all of this madness occur on their watch.

Yes and if you didnt file a return or it was misleading, you would face harsh penalties for it

mikerowsopht

Personally I don't think he got enough for the work he put in

reprazant

I am sure the OP, if offered a pension like that from the state, would refuse it.

To do otherwise would be just hypocritical and would open him up to accusations of suffering from nothing but bitter jealousy.

th3 s1aught3r

reprazant wrote: »

I am sure the OP, if offered a pension like that from the state, would refuse it.

To do otherwise would be just hypocritical and would open him up to accusations of suffering from nothing but bitter jealousy.

So if I have a problem with someone getting a state pension of 5k a week and I post about it here I am nothing other than jealous ? and everyone else who has posted, they are all just jealous too,
Can you think of any other reason, no?
Thinking is good, try it sometime

Wertz

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

Can you think of any other reason, no?

Begrudgery.

bladespin

Wasn't that negotiated when he took the job? I don't see what he has done wrong, if anything he's excelled in the job and is only getting what he's due. TBH look at the salaries and pensions/handshakes given to directors of multinationals (comparable job IMO) and you'll see it's in line.

I have a question for the begrudgers, how can we get the best talent into these jobs if we don't offer them competitive salaries (and pensions)? We need the likes of Sommers now more than ever.
No-one's going to do the job out of national pride if they can join a company that offers more for the same/similar jobs.

professore

This guy saved us from going bankrupt (at least for now).

Of all the examples to use, this is the worst one, as he is one of the few who deserved a good salary & pension etc.

If I pay you € 20 a week and you cost me € 100 through screwups you are overpaid. If I pay you €20,000 a week and you make me € 200,000 you are underpaid ....

Amazing how few seem to grasp this simple maths.

As for our TD's, we pay them 300 K + per annum and they cost us 60 billion. This guy saved our asses and also managed to build up a big pension fund that made money every year and has already lessened the cost of bailing out the banks ... now THERE's a better example of wasted money.

th3 s1aught3r

bladespin wrote: »

TBH look at the salaries and pensions/handshakes given to directors of multinationals (comparable job IMO) and you'll see it's in line.

I have a question for the begrudgers, how can we get the best talent into these jobs if we don't offer them competitive salaries (and pensions)? We need the likes of Sommers now more than ever.

Multinationals dont pay their staff with public money

How is this begrudgery? Are we not allowed to question what our money is used for ??
We offer them great salaries and pensions, (5k a week) now, where is the talent ?

PeakOutput

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

Multinationals dont pay their staff with public money

How is this begrudgery? Are we not allowed to question what our money is used for ??
We offer them great salaries and pensions, (5k a week) now, where is the talent ?

of course you can

demonising a private citizen is not the way to do it and you have to accept that even though he works for the goverment that dosnt automatically entitle you to know every detail about his life. not even every financial detail

bladespin

th3 s1aught3r wrote: »

Multinationals dont pay their staff with public money

How is this begrudgery? Are we not allowed to question what our money is used for ??
We offer them great salaries and pensions, (5k a week) now, where is the talent ?

I agree but we're trying to attract people from the same pool as they are. If you want someone capable of doing the job you'll have to pay.

Problem here is no-one questioned where the money was going until now, now anyone earning anything substantial is for the chopping board of public opinion regardless of wheter they're worth it or not, we need top talent for these jobs, in this case we were lucky enough to land exactly that, in so many others we were handed a crony, in this case the man's done an incredibly good job and retires on his (deserved) pension, why pick this for scorn? begrudgery, simple.