Will Biffo qualify for Job Seekers Allowance

Atilathehun

Seeing that our dear leader Brian Cowen, is unlikely to stand in the next election, I guess he will be technically unemployed.
I'm wondering what social welfare entitlements he will be entitled to?
Job seekers allowance anybody??

bestleftfull3

harsh:mad:

Mongarra

I think to qualify for Jobseekers allowance you must be actively seeking work. After the last few years one wonders if he's capable of doing a proper job in any sphere!

snubbleste

No he won't.
He has marvellous pension(s), a chaffeur garda driver for life, some quango job, he's a solicitor with property investments etc etc

cosmic

If so, I bet he'll be regretting those cuts!

RichardAnd

Brian Cowen will not be unemployed after the next election. People at his level don't lose their jobs in the conventional sense of the term. Besides, he'll get his pension and other benefits of being a former taoiseach which include a state funeral when his time comes.

Fair or not, that's just the way things are.

later12

snubbleste wrote: »

No he won't.
He has marvellous pension(s), a chaffeur garda driver for life, some quango job, he's a solicitor with property investments etc etc

He's also entitled to a number of secretaries for a number of years, and at least one secretary for life.

But he's not really a solicitor, in that he was only every a solicitor for about a year before he became a TD at 24, so it's not really something he can (or would) go back to. I imagine he will write his memoirs, but his other endeavours shall be interesting: he is unlikely to do much media or PR work like other Taoisigh due to his well referenced and highly lamentable lack of communication skills, as well as his general unpopularity. Maybe Sean FitzPatrick might get him a job.

jimmycrackcorm

Why wouldn't he run in the election? He's popular in his own parish pumped constituency, he's still young enough that when people become disillusioned with the inevitable lack of progress by the next government that he could end up being a minister again in a future FF participating government.

After all Noonan will be soon setting the precedent as an ex-party leader.

bestleftfull3

if he seeks re-election he will get it.....end of !

max 73

Atilathehun wrote: »

Seeing that our dear leader Brian Cowen, is unlikely to stand in the next election, I guess he will be technically unemployed.
I'm wondering what social welfare entitlements he will be entitled to?
Job seekers allowance anybody??

the way our system is he probably could.............:eek:

snubbleste

I don't think he will run for election because he knows what is coming up.

When in opposition, he will be targeted as the then finance minster and taoiseach responsible in which the economy faltered. I expect the next government to launch some inquiries into some decisions taken over the last decade if nothing except to sate the public.

Like all the other resigning minsters/TDs, he'd be better off financially to not run.

mikemac

He's still fairly young.
No idea if he'd run or not but it's not like Batt O'Keefe at 65 or other retiring TD's who definitely will never run again

Dannyboy83

You have to be means tested to qualify for JSA.
Cowen has several properties, including Dublin, Leeds and so on, and has a nice bit tucked away in the bank.
(iirc, he stays at Farmleigh so he can rent out his Dublin property)

You cannot avail of JSA if you have money in the bank/liquid assets.

Head The Wall

It's a joke that he will get a car and driver for doing a crappy job for two years. Hopefully the next govt will get rid of this, CH have some plan re pooling ministers cars.

Sticky_Fingers

I almost wish he was and that he had the brass neck to go to the social welfare office to sign on for it just so that the people who have suffered most by his cackhanded mismanagement of this countries economy could get some retribution.

fliball123

Head The Wall wrote: »

It's a joke that he will get a car and driver for doing a crappy job for two years. Hopefully the next govt will get rid of this, CH have some plan re pooling ministers cars.

All this cnut should be entitled to is a good kick in the balls. There seriously needs to be investigation into wheather biffo new about the banks before this bailout and if its proven he did he should be hung for treason ...FAT fcuk

dohouch

Just heard on the radio he will have a pension of €160,000, but only earn €100, 000 as a TD. so maybe he won't run.

later12

There is huge pressure on Cowen to run locally, apparently, but I wouldn't realistically expect him to do it. He is not a man who is generally given to yield to pressure, as one backbencher apparently put it 'Cowen doesn't do perception'.

It would be tremendously difficult for him on a personal level not just to return to the opposition benches after 13 years, but indeed to return to the back benches of the opposition. I think he will announce an intention not to run tomorrow, upon the selection of the new Fianna Fáil leader, or else in the coming days.

Nolanger

He's entitled to Jobseekers Benefit.

later12

Actually since he is under 55 (yes believe it or not he is but a sprightly 51) is his parliamentary payoff not defined as a redundancy? And since that sum would presumably be in excess of €50,000, he would be disqualified from receiving a Jobseekers Benefit payment that being the case.

edit; just found out that this would, at best, only delay his benefits claim by 9 weeks maximum.

re-edit; I have to laugh at the image that this thread arouses in my mind of Mary Cowen driving Brian down to the post office in some clapped out Ford Transit to collect his benefits... nevertheless I do find it slightly appalling that someone on this sort of salary and payoff, and pension, would actually be entitled to such a payment, even if they did not chose to exercise that entitlement.

Seth Brundle

IIRC I read something in the Phoenix a few months back about him not having signed up with the law society and him not being registered to practice (although he may have done so since).

Still, maybe he will learn from the master and get a job with a crap newspaper and then sit in a cupboard!

Pharaoh1

A technical point.
Like any other public/civil servant who was employed by the state before April 1995 Brian Cowen would have been excused (unlike most of the rest of us) paying "full" or class A PRSI.
On this basis he could not receive jobseekers benefit and I don't think he would pass the old means test for jobseekers allowance.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

It would be an interesting exercise to to up the total pension contributions paid by Brian Cowen (super annuation from the time he was first elected added to the pension levy for the last couple of years) and see what sort of fund it would typically amount to.
Then compare this to the actuarial value of his pension package. I would say his contributions would fund only a small fraction of the cost.

RichardAnd

Pharaoh1 wrote: »

A technical point.
Like any other public/civil servant who was employed by the state before April 1995 Brian Cowen would have been excused (unlike most of the rest of us) paying "full" or class A PRSI.
On this basis he could not receive jobseekers benefit and I don't think he would pass the old means test for jobseekers allowance.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

It would be an interesting exercise to to up the total pension contributions paid by Brian Cowen (super annuation from the time he was first elected added to the pension levy for the last couple of years) and see what sort of fund it would typically amount to.
Then compare this to the actuarial value of his pension package. I would say his contributions would fund only a small fraction of the cost.

You are correct in that that is the rule for civil servants ( and possibly some public servants). However, I'm unsure those rules apply to politicians. After all, they aren't civil servants in the conventional sense.

DoesNotCompute

Atilathehun wrote: »

Seeing that our dear leader Brian Cowen, is unlikely to stand in the next election, I guess he will be technically unemployed.
I'm wondering what social welfare entitlements he will be entitled to?
Job seekers allowance anybody??

Doesn't he get a golden handshake and a pension???

magicface1

could you imagine cuing up in a dole office to sign on and COWen walks in.. Its in the national interest that I sign on first, I have a mandate crap will be out again ha ha.......