As one of the best-paid Ministers of Health in the world, Mary Harney's take-it-or-leave-it offer to funding for Thalidomide sufferers as reported by Susan Mitchell (19th December) is extraordinary. Her offer of €62,500 lump sum plus an annual €,680 per survivor contrasts with her own prospective retirement package(based on those quoted for Ahern and Dempsey) of over €300,000 paid in first year in addition to an annual pension in excess of €120,000.
Letter published in the Sunday Business Post on 2nd January 2011. This letter was not tended to be a "dig" at Mary Harney but rather to illustrate (a) the extreme inequity in Irish society and (b) the extent to which our politicians are divorced from their constituents and have feathered their own nests.
