IRELAND's outgoing European Commissioner, Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, is entitled to a total €432,000 EU pay-off over the next three years to help her adjust to life after Brussels.

Ms Geoghegan-Quinn will also be entitled to an EU pension of more than €54,000 a year from September 2015.

And from this autumn, she can also resume collecting her Irish TD and ministerial pensions totalling €108,000 a year – giving her total pension entitlements worth over €3,000 a week.

It comes as speculation mounts over Taoiseach Enda Kenny's upcoming announcement over Ireland's next EU Commissioner, with Environment Minister Phil Hogan long considered a frontrunner; but other names now emerging include Labour's Eamon Gilmore and MEP Mairead McGuinness.

In April 2010, after extreme political pressure, the former Fianna Fail TD and minister Geoghegan-Quinn announced she would gift these Irish political pensions to the State for the duration of her five-year EU term, which ends in October.

The commissioner's Dublin pensions will be subject to Irish tax, and the Brussels pensions and other payments will also be subject to EU taxes of 45pc at the top end.

EU commissioners leaving office are entitled, subject to certain conditions, to a "transitional all- owance" over three years varying between 45pc and 65pc of salary.

Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn's entitlement amounts to 55pc of her salary, or €137,000 per year, and this Continued on Page 5

Irish Independent