Norris: Trinity told me to take disability payments
David Norris has defended taking tens of thousands of euro in disability payments from Trinity College for 16 years while a Senator.
The Presidential candidate said he was told to take the payment by Trinity after contracting Hepatitis "from water" while in Central Europe, and told he could not work there again.
At his official campaign launch this morning, he has revealed the payment is currently around €2,500 a month.
It was Non A, B or C Hepatitis, contracted from drinking water in Central Europe in 1994, and he said it left him so tired he was unable to do his job lecturing in Trinity, who told him to take the payment.
“I was medically advised it was not possible for me to undertake the stress of the very intensive lecturing and tutorial duties that I had,” he said.
Mr Norris said it was the university authorities who decided to place him on permanent disability and replace him with another academic, giving him time to focus on the Seanad.
He did concede that if it were now he may think differently about taking the payment while having another job:
He insisted his health would not be an issue for him to become President
The 67-year-old Joycean scholar, who had worked as a tutor and lecturer at Trinity since 1968, insisted he was well enough for the office of the president.
“I am, I feel a great deal better,” he said.
“For three years I did not take any alcohol at all, which you’re advised, with the small exception every Sunday at St Patrick’s Cathedral.”
Officially launching his election campaign, Mr Norris again stressed he was acting on legal advice from Israeli and Irish lawyers – including distinguished criminal barrister Michael O’Higgins – which stops him disclosing controversial clemency letters he wrote for an ex-partner convicted of statutory rape.
“This case involved real people,” he said.
“It changed their lives and left deep scars.
“I do not want to be the person who rips these scars open again and puts them on public display.”
