TARA MINES pensioners are facing a proposed reduction of 10 per cent in their annual pension payments as a result of the introduction of a new Government levy, it has been claimed.
A spokesman said yesterday that in recent days 267 Tara Mines pensioners had received a letter from the Trustees of the Tara Mines Pension Fund indicating that due to the introduction of the Government’s 0.6 per cent levy on private occupational pension funds they must choose to accept either a 10 per cent cut in their pensions for the next four years or a permanent reduction of 2.5 per cent for the rest of their lives.
The pensioners are seeking a meeting with Minister for Finance Michael Noonan to draw his attention to the detrimental effect the Government levy will have on private pension funds.
Meath TDs and local authority members have been invited to attend a general meeting of pensioners in Navan on Wednesday.
Tara Mines pensioners’ spokesman Tom Kelly said yesterday: “Old age pensioners, who listened to advice from the Government to provide for themselves and their dependents, are to have their pension funds pillaged.
“I do not believe this Government pension levy will create jobs . . . There are other more effective ways for the Government to generate jobs. If even a small proportion of Irish pension funds, that are currently valued at over €80 billion, were invested in this country rather than abroad, this would create many more jobs locally,” he said.
Exempting pension schemes from the levy if they were willing to invest say 5 per cent of their funds in Ireland would generate far more jobs, Mr Kelly added.
Such a proposal has been put forward to the Government by the trade union Siptu.
Last May the Government announced it would impose a 0.6 per cent levy on pension funds for four years to generate €470 million a year to fund up to 100,000 jobs.
However, in advance of the Cabinet decision senior Department of Finance officials warned that tens of thousands of people faced sharp increases in the cost of pensions or reductions in benefits as a consequence of the Government’s pension levy to fund job creation.
In a confidential note prepared for Mr Noonan, officials maintained that pension funds were facing serious deficits and the levy would have a negative effect on the solvency of thousands of pension schemes.