Ever since the spectacular collapse of the last Fianna Fail Government, which saw many former ministers hurriedly jump ship and pick up their generous pensions before the brown stuff hit the gigantic fan, 62-year-old Mary Harney has been keeping a low profile and quietly enjoying her €129,000 a year pension.
Now, however, the often controversial character, who once proudly proclaimed that the ‘worst day in Government is still better than the best day in Opposition’, has recently been sort of picking up plush odd jobs here and there to boost her personal coffers.
For instance, last week she revealed herself to be the leader of a quango funded by pharma giant AbbVie to spearhead a European Union initiative to prevent illness, rather than treating it.
In another incarnation, she is Mary Harney’s is part of an advisory board of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations.
Here at home, Ms. Harney is chairwoman of AMBER, a bio-engineering research centre in Trinity College, and has also recently joined a software consultancy Diona based in Dundrum.
The list of boards and advisory groups she is part of goes on and on.
No doubt all these roles provide a rather comfortable income to the person who insisted she was worth every penny of her €129,000 a year pension, and who also received a €300,000 lump sum when she left office.