Katherine Licken, former Secretary-General of the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, helmed by Catherine Martin, Minister for Media, was given a departure package totalling nearly €220,000 earlier this year. This payout, as confirmed by departmental reports, mirrors her contractual obligations and adheres to the protocols set by the government.
In recent times, the functioning of Ms Martin’s office has been questioned, especially over payments made to high-level staff in the public broadcasting house, RTÉ. Last month, Ms Martin’s office communicated to the Oireachtas Committee on Media, stating it would be unfit for Licken to address a hearing post retirement, involving the case of Siún Ní Raghallaigh’s stepping down as RTÉ’s chair.
Much to the dissatisfaction of many, the matter of launching a new financing model for RTÉ has not received much political priority. The committee’s aim was to delve deeper into an alleged telephonic conversation from October last year. Ní Raghallaigh insists that she informed Licken that the RTÉ board had agreed on a departure deal for the ex Chief Financial Officer, Richard Collins, a conversation which Licken has no memory of.
This week’s parliamentary discussions held by MPs Catherine Murphy, Alan Kelly, and Carol Nolan about departmental figures revealed that an individual from Martin’s department had received a separation payment of €219,240 this year. The department’s spokesperson clarified the amount cited to the MPs was as a “secretary general severance payment”, conforming to the retirement conditions of new secretary general roles since October 2011, set out by the Top Level Appointments Committee (TLAC).
Sources in the government have verified that Licken indeed was the recipient of the golden handshake. After a seven-year tenure as Secretary General, Licken had resigned earlier this year. The remuneration policy for Secretary Generals in government departments was reviewed and modified in 2011 by Brendan Howlin, the then Minister for Public Expenditure, due to uproars over generous pension packages for senior Civil Servants.
Under the reform measures, those who assumed the role of secretary general following November 2011 were not entitled to additional pension years upon the completion of their seven-year tenure. Pensions were to be disbursed only when the relevant individual had attained the prescribed retirement age.
In circumstances where a secretary general was appointed internally from the Civil Service and hadn’t completed a full 40 years of service eligible for pension by the end of their tenure, the Government intended to propose an alternative role.
The 2011 regulations stated that unless the concerned individual hadn’t reached the statutory pension age or hadn’t been suggested an alternate post, no severance payments would be made. In instances where neither of these conditions were met, severance pay equivalent to one year’s salary would be granted. Nonetheless, if an alternate posting was declined, no severance payment would be given.
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