Time to end the shameful pension disparity

IT was breathtaking reading your report on the luxurious lifestyle that awaits Dermot Ahern, at our expense, as he rides off into the sunset leaving in his wake a destroyed country and thousands of wrecked lives.

Instead of calling them to book, we are required, under the present rules, to cosset Mr Ahern and his colleagues, protecting them from the hardships that their ineptitude contributed significantly to creating, while we struggle to get by.

The figures simply staggered the mind of the vast majority of people with modest pensions and those having to rely on the State pension are beside themselves with anger at the sheer injustice of it all.

To add insult to injury, Mr Ahern, who is 55 years old, recently joined his colleagues in agreeing to a so called bailout plan that will raise the retirement age to 68 for the rest of us mere mortals. This gross disparity in how different people and groups are treated in this country must stop.

It is down to the opposition to state clearly that the first thing they will do in office is change the rules so that no state pension shall be payable until the recognised retirement age and that no person, including those elected before 2004, should receive more than one pension.

If they fail to do that the message will go out loud and clear, that if they are elected, nothing really will change. Self-interest will continue to be the prime motivator of those mandated to act only in the common good.

Jim O’Sullivan

Rathedmond

Sligo