Compelling need for action - Global pension survey ranking

FOR 35 years or more, successive governments have talked about the urgency of defusing Ireland’s pension time bomb. 

But, apart from one scuttled initiative, nothing has been done to tackle this looming disaster. And, if anything, this scary problem was compounded by a smash-and-grab raid by the government of the day on the National Pension Reserve Fund which eventually saw a whopping €22bn removed from the public pension pot in order to bail out greedy banks in danger of collapsing.

Perceived as verging on the criminal, the first moves in that act of burglary happened five years ago this month, nine years after the fund was set up by ex-finance minister Charlie McCreevy to help finance the State’s future pension requirements. Since then, the Coalition has replaced his fund with another vehicle which has scarcely €7bn in its coffers. The Government has also imposed a punitive levy on private pension holders, eating into their retirement funds. So, instead of getting better, things have gone from bad to worse.