{"id":413748,"date":"2026-01-16T19:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T19:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/413748\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T19:25:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T19:25:13","slug":"overpaid-ministers-pensions-are-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/413748\/","title":{"rendered":"Overpaid ministers\u2019 pensions are at risk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Serving and former ministers who do not pay back money that was overpaid to them by mistake will not receive their pensions, a Government minister has said, writes Bairbre Holmes.<\/p>\n

It emerged last June that around 13,000 current and former civil servants and ministers were to have their pension deductions assessed for possible anomalies.<\/p>\n

During Leaders\u2019 Questions in the D\u00e1il yesterday, Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Pearse Doherty <\/a>asked why ten current ministers and 17 former ministers had yet to pay back excess payments, claiming some were overpaid \u201ctens of thousands\u201d of euro.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThis isn\u2019t the Government\u2019s money, it\u2019s not the department\u2019s money, but it\u2019s the public\u2019s money, it is taxpayers\u2019 money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Responding on behalf of the Government, Employment Minister Peter Burke<\/a> said some of the delays were because \u201ca number of clarifications have been sought in relation to the calculations that were brought forward\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"ministers\"Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Pearse Doherty asked why ten current ministers and 17 former ministers had yet to pay back excess payments, claiming some were overpaid \u201ctens of thousands\u201d of euro. Photo: Leah Farrell\/Rollingnews.ie<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has a right to ensure that they are paying the correct amount,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Government is crystal clear that any retired civil servant or minister who does not comply or pay back what is due to the Exchequer will not receive their pension.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serving and former ministers who do not pay back money that was overpaid to them by mistake will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[45,49,48,133,131,132],"class_list":["post-413748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-finance","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}