Pensioners to escape brunt of cutbacks

TAOISEACH Brian Cowen has given his strongest indication yet that pensioners will escape the brunt of cutbacks in the budget in three weeks time.

Speaking in Dublin yesterday evening, Mr Cowen said he was proud of the provision made for pensioners in previous years and that it was not his intention to undo all that work.

Mr Cowen told the European Pension Funds Awards Presentation in the RDS that budgets are not simply about balancing books.

Meanwhile, a new report on equality in Irish society has found the gap between rich and poor was widened by the Celtic Tiger, with one-in-four families earning €20,000 or less.

The equality think-tank TASC and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) yesterday launched the Hierarchy of Earnings, Attributes and Privilege (HEAP) report, which broke down the wealth in the country into bands.

It found that while 5% of families live on incomes over €134,000, 26% must make do with €20,000 or less. The majority, 56%, live on less than €40,000.

The report also found that, unadjusted, women’s income was around two-thirds of men’s, and that even when the figures were adjusted for differences in hours worked, women’s hourly earnings were around 86% of men’s.

The report, which was authored by National University of Ireland, Galway academics Professor Terrence McDonough and Jason Loughrey, found a striking “education premium.”

They said the median gross income of those with no formal education, or primary education only, was €13,489, while those with a university degree had a median income of €45,707.

Speaking at the launch of the report, ICTU general secretary David Begg said: “Here we have a graphic illustration of our clearly divided society, and strong evidential support for the view that Government cannot continue to impose the burden of this recession on low and middle income earners. Massive amounts of wealth were generated during the boom years. This report very clearly shows where that money did not go – to the majority of the population. And that wealth has not evaporated; it is still there, albeit concentrated in a few hands.

TASC director Paula Clancy said: “We’ve known for some time that income inequality in particular, and economic inequality in general, is rife in Ireland. Now, the HEAP report enables us to put figures on inequality.”