Pensions warning - Take gloves off to fight this scandal

When organisations as disparate as IBEC, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Irish Association of Pension Funds and the Society of Actuaries in Ireland find common cause and warn Government of a looming crisis then only a foolish politician would look the other way and hope the problem will resolve itself.

Yet, that is what all of our public representatives have been doing since the pensions crisis alarm bells started ringing some years ago. In recent years the only meaningful intervention on private pensions has been the imposition of a levy on funds already struggling to meet obligations. That this levy did not hit public pension savers points again to an inequitable and unacceptable doublethink on the issue.

That yesterday’s warning follows hot on the heels of a European Court of Justice ruling which recorded that the pension rights of former Waterford Crystal employees has been put in jeopardy because of Government stasis on an 1980 EU pensions directive only adds to a growing sense of foreboding and injustice on the issue.