Letters to the Editor: Some pensioners penalised for paying into occupational pension
People receiving the State pension and a modest occupational pension can lose both a medical card and access to important home-energy supports. Picture: iStock
I have written to environment minister Darragh O’Brien asking him to review an unfair anomaly in the SEAI Warmer Homes Scheme.
Consider two pensioners, aged over 70, living next door to each other in identical, poorly insulated homes. Both receive the State pension, face the same heating costs, and need the same energy improvements and supports.
One qualifies for fuel allowance and can therefore access a fully-funded retrofit. The other receives a modest occupational pension, fails the fuel allowance means test and consequently has no route through fuel allowance to the Warmer Homes Scheme.
The difference may simply be that one contributed to an occupational pension during their working life.
This reflects a wider unfairness in how older people are treated. Before the economic crisis, everyone aged 70 and over was entitled to a medical card.
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The government withdrew that universal entitlement in 2008 and replaced it with a means test. Although the economic emergency has long since passed, the universal right has never been restored.
As a result, a pensioner who receives the State pension together with a modest occupational pension can lose both a medical card and access to important home-energy supports.
As a former ITGWU/Siptu official and head of Siptu College, I spent much of my working life promoting occupational pensions. They represent deferred wages and contributions made to provide dignity and security in retirement.
The Government now encourages workers to save through My Future Fund. It is contradictory to encourage today’s workers to save while penalising pensioners who have already done so.
I am calling on the Government to restore the universal medical card for everyone aged 70 and over and provide a fair route for State pensioners to qualify for the Warmer Homes Scheme.
An occupational pension should provide dignity and security. It should not become a reason to deny an older person healthcare or a warm, energy-efficient home.
Restricting analysis of a game to one incident in a GAA match reduces the value of the analysis. Anthony Daly’s ongoing analysis of the Limerick-Clare match result — ‘Duggan-Quaid incident still sticks in Clare craw, admits Daly’ ( , Sept 9) centres almost totally on the “Nickie Quaid incident”.
Anthony’s argument is reduced to saying Nickie broke a rule that doesn’t exist. His sending off would have enabled Clare to win.
Perhaps Nickie Quaid was saved by the rule that does exist.
In relation to the rule that does exist, Anthony’s argument now rests on defining when a player is in control of the ball. Part of Anthony’s definition amounts to saying that a player is in control of the ball when he parts company with the ball and knows what he’s going to do with it after regaining possession of it and/or using it a moment later.
Who knows if he will regain possession? Who can predict how well he will use the ball if indeed he does gain possession? Perhaps he will fumble it. How close to the ball does a player have to be in control of it?
In relation to restricting match analysis to one incident consider a second incident in the 57th minute of the match. Adam English, in undoubted full control of the ball, got inside his marker with only the Clare goalkeeper to beat. His marker pulled English (in full control of the ball) down at the second attempt. Well inside the 20-metre line.
Would English have scored a goal had he not been fouled? Who knows? The rule assumes he would. English duly got his free and there was a yellow card.
Perhaps Anthony might apply his “if/then” argument to this incident.
In terms of refereeing decisions, it’s now a “one-all draw”. Move forward to the sixth minute of injury time. (As in the Munster final, Limerick’s opponents were gifted extra-extra time to catch up. More on this below.) A Clare player clearly dragged the helmet off a Limerick back’s head. (Not just Nickie’s tip on the side of the helmet.) Another mere yellow card.
Calculate the refereeing balance between each team now as you wish. But restricting the analysis of the outcome to one incident is not enough.
Finally consider Anthony’s view that the Clare free taker should have taken a point from the last Clare free to put just one point between the teams, and so motivate the referee to “draw the match” by granting another free against Limerick. Surely the team that’s ahead at full time should win. Otherwise, the referees need training on how to manage sentiment.
Tony Kelly treated us to a classic demonstration on penalty taking. Clare got their goal. They are an excellent team. But the Clare complaint concerning the Nickie Quaid incident runs the danger of suggesting they needed Limerick to be reduced to 14 players in order to overcome Limerick. Surely the Clare players deserve more Clare confidence than that.
Justice minister Jim O’Callaghan’s new rules for becoming a citizen coincides exactly with the current situation, as it applies to a significant number of the original refugees from Ukraine.
Effectively, these refugees will have three more years to wait until they can apply to be citizens.
Interesting coincidence?
I welcome many of the new hurling rule changes proposed by John Myler and his advisory committee. However, I am completely against the suggestion that players be allowed to take six steps before hitting the ball. This proposed rule is crazy to put it mildly, because every hurling supporter can quite easily recall goals that have been scored to win All-Irelands, after a player took up to 10 steps before hitting the ball when the limit is only four.
Everyone has seen players almost “taking the ball home” and not being penalised, which is just awful for both supporters and other players alike. This six steps proposal should be a non-runner.
However, I am all for the proposed new handpass rule which is something which I have been advocating for a few years, as an ordinary club supporter. It should cut down the ball throwing by 50%, and will both improve and increase the quality of passing the ball with the hurley. There is nothing as bad in hurling at the present time as seeing the ball being moved the entire length of the field without a hurley having been used.
I am also glad to see the advisory committee is making an effort to cut down on the short puck-out, but I would prefer it if they had decided on a limit of 65m and not 45m. Most supporters abhor a full-back hitting the ball back to his goalkeeper.
Cormac O’Keeffe’s report — ‘Ireland’s first ‘research security’ guidelines issued to third-level institutions’ ( , September 9) rightly highlights the threat that foreign interference poses to academic freedom.
However, the Government must also acknowledge that the risks to academic freedom extend beyond those at institutional level. As documented by multiple sources including Index on Censorship and Freedom House, foreign governments and their proxies seek to intimidate, monitor, coerce, or silence individual academics and students living and working in Ireland because of their research, activism, or views. This is known as transnational repression.
Pressure can also extend to family members in their home countries, through online harassment, surveillance, reputational attacks, or threats to travel and employment.
As part of a wider strategy, the Government should work closely in consultation and partnership with members of affected communities, identify and track incidents of transnational repression, require universities to provide clear, safe, and confidential reporting and support mechanisms for those targeted, and ensure credible threats are addressed swiftly and robustly.
Academic freedom is a cornerstone of an open society. Protecting all academic community members including students, researchers, lecturers, and other staff at higher education institutions and research institutions from foreign coercion is not a constraint on international academic engagement; it is a condition for genuine academic freedom.
