By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor
MICHAEL D Higgins will retire with a €1.5m property portfolio and three publiclyfunded pensions when he leaves Áras an Uachtaráin.
Regardless of whether or not he wins a second term, Mr Higgins is entitled to a pension equal to half his current salary – as well as another pension from his service in the Dáil and a pension from NUI Galway where he once lectured.
This means Mr Higgins can look forward to an annual pension of around €180,000 This will be made up of his Presidential pension, his NUI pension and his ministerial pension which Mr Higgins has charitably foregone during his time as President.
Last night a spokesperson said he had gifted the Exchequer €169,952 annually by forfeiting his ministerial pension while President and implementing a 23.5% reduction in his Presidential salary upon entering office.
During his career, Mr Higgins – who this week said homelessness was the single biggest issue facing Ireland – has amassed a property portfolio worth an estimated €1.5m in Galway and Dublin.
The family home on the Circular Road in Galway, built in 1990, is worth an estimated €700,000. Public records indicate that the home has been mortgage-free since April 2013 when a number of Irish Nationwide loans secured against the house were settled.
In August 2014, the President and his wife bought No.2, Sylvan Road in Galway for €370,000. A Bank of Ireland loan is registered against the property. Mr Higgins this week refused to say what, if any, collateral he used to secure the loan at his advanced age.
This appears to be an investment property and is registered with the Residential Tenancies Board.
Mr Higgins and his wife also own an apartment in Grattan Hall, Mount Street, Dublin, purchased in the 1990s where his daughter – Senator Alice Mary Higgins – lives. This property is thought to be worth in the region of €300,000.
Reacting to suggestions he should move out of Áras an Uachtaráin as a gesture towards Ireland’s homelessness crisis this week Mr Higgins said: ‘The Constitution specifies that the person who is in the Áras must live within the radius of Dublin. I was very happy living in my apartment in the centre of Dublin. It was a modest apartment.’ ‘Homelessness is our greatest problem. As a President who is engaged with it – I have been engaged with housing and homelessness since I was elected to a local authority in 1973 – I have encountered it at every level, I have campaigned on it at every level.’
HIGGINS KEEPS SCHTUM ON GIFTS
OutgOing President Michael D Higgins has refused to say if any of his unaudited €317,000 presidential allowance was spent on personal gifts or wardrobe items.
Mr Higgins insists the unaudited allowance was properly spent – but won’t release statements detailing this expenditure until after the election.
Last week, when the allowance was revealed at the PAC, the irish Mail on Sunday asked Mr Higgins if it had funded salaries or top- ups for advisers.
Since then Mr Higgins has angrily denied that advisers’ salaries were paid from the fund – and refuses to reveal if it was used to purchase gifts or wardrobe items.
He has also not fully explained how the salary of adviser Kevin McCarthy was initially put in place, and accounted for.
Spokesman for the Presidency Hans Zomer, told the MoS: ‘i have nothing to add at this stage.’
