Government pandering to pension industry

THE recent 2010 Social Welfare and Pensions Bill has put us in the ludicrous position of borrowing our own money at a guaranteed premium interest rate.

We will be borrowing this from the pensions industry if they choose to buy our Irish sovereign bonds. How crazy is this?

We are investing pension contributions from private sector workers matched by similar amounts of tax foregone, €4.1 billion in 2007. There is no guarantee that we will get a single cent return from the industry. In effect we give our money to the pensions industry free gratis and they in turn lend it back to us under guilt edge conditions with a state guaranteed penal interest rate.