Politics Irish PM best paid head of state

According to The Economist, the Irish taoiseach (prime minister) is paid a generous €310,000 ($446,000) per year, more than the US president. This makes of him the highest paid head of state in the developed world (probably). In comparison, the German chancellor or the Italian PM receives a bit more than half.

A Poor Bertie he needs that pay rise don’t you know, hair stylists and makeup artists don’t come cheap especially in rip off Ireland where you don’t get so much bang for your buck.

Bertie recently said you can’t compare his salary with other Premiers like Sarkozy who have people who pay for everything he doesn’t even have to put his hand in his pocket to buy a cup of tea. Well with the last pay rise equal to the average industrial wage I can’t see Bertie going thirsty.

Now the less cynical view might take the line that if he were a manager in charge of a company and had had the same spectacular success as Ireland Incorporated over the last 10 years then perhaps he would be entitled to good pay rise.

If you were heaven forbid a bit cynical you might think it a bit hypocritical that in the same week as he approved his pay rise he informed Public servants that they would have to tighten their belts and have more realistic pay expectations considering softening economic forecasts.

If you were even a little more cynical you might say the timing of the announcement might have been arranged to coincide with the Transport minister’s initiative to remove all provisional licence holding drivers off the road if unaccompanied by drivers with full licences with a lead in time of barely a weekend. This is another scandal where waiting lists to do a test were let stretch to over 6-12 months and with poor public transport especially out side the cities up to 20% of all adults were forced to drive with L plates on there own. The back lash to this certainly took some of the heat off Bettie.

And if you were the most cynical of all you might think that as this is Berties last stint in office he doesn’t care what people say he just wants the money before he retires.

But as they say in the L’Oreal add “He’s worth it”.