This story was first published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 15/01/12
By Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor
THE Revenue boss behind the controversial maildrop to 115,000 pensioners can look forward to a €103,000 a year pension and early retirement at 57.
The Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal that Josephine Feehily is sitting on a pension pot that currently has a capital value of more than €2.3m.
Mrs Feehily’s term as Revenue chairman will expire in 2015, after seven years at the helm. But she will qualify for a full secretary general pension when she reaches 40 years’ public service, in 15 months’ time.
As of today, with 38 years and nine months of service, she is entitled to a lump sum payment of just over €309,000 and an annual pension in excess of €103,000 based on her current wage of just over €215,000.
The Department of Finance estimates the capital value of senior civil servants’ pension entitlements by assuming they will be paid an annual pension on average for 20 years before they die.
Using that benchmark, the estimated value of Mrs Feehily’s taxpayer-funded pension will be just over €2m plus the generous lump sum payment.
But since Mrs Feehily will qualify for her pension next year at the age of 57, it is likely she will receive her pension for considerably more than 20 years, massively increasing the amount which the taxpayer will have to fund.
As an existing department head, Mrs Feehily has largely escaped new laws aimed at cutting the lucrative entitlements of secretaries general.
The changes in December’s Finance Act mean that all new secretaries general can’t be paid more than €200,000 and will as a result receive smaller pensions.
But as part of the new rules, Mrs Feehily will have to pay 20% tax on the remainder of her lump sum above €200,000. Before the change, her entire lump sum would have been tax free. She has also this year taken a voluntary pay cut of €15,590.
The handsome pension package means that Mrs Feehily can look forward to a very different sort of pension than the majority of the hard-hit pensioners who received frightening letters from the Revenue Commissioners last week. The letters sparked consternation among pensioners and culminated in an Oireachtas apology from Mrs Feehily on Wednesday.
She said: ‘We caused confusion and distress to some people, and I’m sincerely sorry for that.’ Since being appointed Revenue chairman four years ago, Mrs Feehily has largely avoided controversy as she spearheaded a number of successful campaigns and special investigations, which dramatically increased tax takes.
Aside from the fact that she is a rare example of a female head of a government department, her profile has remained largely below the news radar.
Mrs Feehily was born in 1956 to James Curran, a plumber, and his wife, Teresa, who lived in Limerick city centre. While still a child, the family moved to Clarina in Co. Limerick, where they ran the Ferrybank Tavern pub, a business still run to this day by Mrs Feehily’s brother, Frank.
Although she now lives in a modest Co. Meath home, purchased in 1995 with a £90,000 Irish Nationwide mortgage, Mrs Feehily also owns a plot of land close to Clarina, which she acquired in 1996.
In 1979, she married Paddy Feehily, and ten years later, she served as a director of Engcon Services, a short-lived construction firm he set up at their Co. Meath home.
Mrs Feehily joined the civil service straight out of school and once worked as a personal assistant to Charlie Haughey when he was health minister.
Prior to being appointed by Bertie Ahern to the top post at the Revenue Commissioners, she served at the Pensions Board and the Labour Relations Commission.
As the first ever female Revenue boss, she is renowned within the civil service for her gender equality work and has served on a number of State bodies charged with improving gender balances in the workplace.
The issue appears to be of particular importance for her. She has spoken of her anger as a teenager when she discovered that women had to pass a sewing test to become a teacher while men did not.
In June, she was elected chairman of the World Customs Organisation, an organisation of 177 countries that shapes international customs policy and trade.
Her involvement in the organisation means that Mrs Feehily has enjoyed a number of all-expenses-paid trips to exotic locations such as the French Riviera, Mexico and Montenegro in recent years.
The Revenue said it could not provide any details of the cost of foreign travel or accommodation for Mrs Feehily’s trips to foreign conferences until next week.
A spokesman was also unable to say whether Mrs Feehily’s husband had ever accompanied her on any of the trips abroad or whether she ever flew first class.
But the MoS has established that Mrs Feehily attended a two-day WCO conference in the historic lakeside spa resort of Ohrid, Macedonia, in March 2010.
Aside from a series of work meetings, the events programme highlighted an extensive social programme for delegates and their partners.
Activities available during the conference included a wine and cheese tasting party, guided tours, a string quartet performance and a classical music concert.
Last July, Mrs Feehily attended a two-day event on the French Riviera organised by another body, the Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administrators. This event, during which she moderated a number of panel discussions, saw her stay in the B4 Nice Plaza Hotel, a four-star waterfront hotel overlooking Angels Bay.
Other WCO events attended by Mrs Feehily include trips to Veracruz, on the Gulf of Mexico in 2007, to Baku, Azerbaijan, last October, and to Abuja, Nigeria, last month.
Additional foreign trips include a 1998 visit to New South Wales and a visit to Slovenia two years ago to learn about those countries’ tax and customs mechanisms.
This year, Mrs Feehily will likely clock up significantly more air miles now that she is WCO chairman.
The organisation’s annual meeting is scheduled for Malaysia in March although a Revenue spokesman was unable to say whether Mrs Feehily would be attending.
ENDS
