Minister’s pension comments criticised

Commenting on the report on the high charges being levied on pensions, Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton, when asked about the prospect for tax reliefs on pension contributions, stated that she did not think it was necessarily a good idea to seek to reduce the marginal rate of relief, but rather to cap it.

She went on to explain that the existing reliefs should remain on contributions that would provide an annual pension of €60,000.

As usual she made no reference to the fact that the 50% of people who cannot afford to make any pension provision for themselves are to continue to subsidise those that can. In this scenario, those people will have the basic State pension of €230 a week to look forward to while those that they assisted to save will go on to receive a pension of €1,200.

The minister sees nothing wrong with this gross injustice.

Is it any wonder that she and her colleagues see nothing wrong either with the huge pay, expenses and allowances that they are currently taking from a pot that is all but empty?

Jim O’Sullivan

Rathedmond

Sligo