FG TD says its not easy on €140k a year, tells a foreigner to go home and says government will default on debt in 4 years!

FG TD (on 50k expenses) gives verdict on her salary - and says economist Gurdgiev should get first plane back to Moscow


A Fine Gael TD has been accused of complaining to protestors about struggling to make ends meet on combined salary and expenses of €140,000 a year. Aine Collins is said to have declared during a private meeting about the crisis "thank god we get paid today". The forty two year old is also alleged to have responded to comments about the respected Russian economist Constantin Gurdgiev saying "the best thing he can do for Ireland is get back on a plane to Moscow".

  The Deputy outlined out to us the government policy, their hope that in three or four years, when our debt has become utterly unsustainable, we will get a write-down "of up to 50%" from Europe. We pointed out that at that stage the bulk of the bank bonds will have been paid and the one major bargaining tool we still have will be gone, surrendered, the private bank debt now all transformed to sovereign. This will then be sovereign default, for which we will pay a massive price. The guidelines we get to meet the current EU/ECB deadlines? Forget it - sovereign default will mean the troika now dictating line-by-line and top of their list will be our Corporation Tax rate, followed by our old-age pension rates, social welfare baseline rates, and so on and so on.

Before we left, in reference to the above, I stated that a huge number of eminent economists at home and abroad are on record as stating that the bank debt burden is what is sinking Ireland and that the time to strike is now, that it's still not too late. I mentioned one economist in particular, Constantin Gurdgiev. It was like a red rag to a bull, the TD taking off on a rant - "The best thing he can do for Ireland is get on a plane back to Moscow," going on to state that Constantin had a good job in Trinity and inferring he should then not be criticising the Irish government policy, suggesting he had bought a house in Dublin that was now in negative equity, mentioning something about investments in Switzerland.

The meeting had barely started when the TD outlined to us the difficulty of making ends meet on a salary of €92,672 plus expenses (this individual claimed over €50,000 last year), reeling off in rapid succession the list of outgoings, starting with a €10,000 pension contribution (and oh, wouldn't we all like to be contributing to that pension!), ending with the statement - "Thank God we get paid today.    

Áine Collins TD
Áine was elected to Dáil Éireann in February 2011 to represent the Cork North West constituency. She has worked as an accountant and business consultant to small and medium enterprises before getting into politics.
Some other facts on Áine:
Áine is married to Paul and has three children, Ciara, Thomas and Lily. She was born and raised in Banteer, and now lives in Millstreet, Co. Cork. She is a Munster rugby Fan. Her first medal was for the 400m sprint. She likes cooking, reading & mountain walking. Her family dog is Rua, a red setter. Her favourite film is Mamma Mia and favourite singer is Norah Jones. Her hero is Michael Collins.       

 From Politics.ie