Pensioners will give democratic come-uppance

With media focused entirely on the Government lurching daily from farce to fiasco, another significant injustice to pensioners has slipped under the radar, i.e. the unilateral elimination of the Transition Pension for 65-year-olds.

This represents a loss of €12,000 to those who have worked and paid PRSI all their working lives, up to 40 years in many cases. Workers did this in the legitimate belief and expectation that they would receive this money on retirement.

Contrast this shakedown of ordinary Irish citizens with the kid-glove, hands-off treatment by the Government of their own lavish pensions and perks. Just like those in the previous Fianna Fáil government, present ministers, as well as the president of our bankrupt little State, will retire on unsustainable, world-class, six-figure pensions and golden pay-offs.

Contrast this shakedown with myriad senior civil servants currently retiring with massive pensions and six-figure golden handshakes, largely untouched on the basis of expectation and entitlement.

Contrast also this shakedown with the easy availability of countless millions for a growing army of consultants in quangos like Irish Water and across all government departments.

The government boasts that it has not reduced basic social welfare rates, true maybe, but in a whole series of sleight-of-hand stealth taxes they have savaged the income of ordinary pensioners and the aged, while again by contrast, the elite, the insiders and the untouchables continue to bask in relative luxury, funded, of course, by poor old stupid Paddy.

Apart from the transition pension, pensioners have also lost the Christmas bonus and vital telephone subsidy, many have lost their medical cards, prescription charges have trebled, government changes have driven the cost of so-called ‘gold-plated’ private health insurance through the roof, and sustain huge increases in retention tax on savings, however small. For those pensioners unfortunate to be in poor health, disability benefits and carers’ allowances have been mercilessly slashed.

It is inexplicable, therefore, that the present grey brigade appears, so far, to have lost its bottle and has meekly accepted the unprecedented, unfair, immoral and unequal treatment meted out by the Government. Presumably and hopefully, pensioners are patiently biding their time, waiting in the long grass to collectively and justifiably give their verdict on May 23rd next.

Time, surely, for a real and genuine democratic revolution.

John Leahy

Wilton Road

Cork