Insurers hope to cash in with sensible savers The Irish Insurance Federation (IIF) is fast out of the traps. With two years still to go before the Special Savings Incentive Accounts (SSIAs) mature, it has already begun lobbying for its members to get their hands on the €15.6 billion it estimates will hit the streets in 2005 and 2006.
It is urging the Government to "incentivise" holders of SSIAs to convert their five-year SSIA plans to "a life-long savings habit" by the introduction of suitable tax incentives. It particularly wants Mr McCreevy to encourage people to use the funds for pension provision.
Among the measures it suggests is waiving the tax liability on the accounts, at a cost of €460 million, if 50 per cent of the maturity value of the SSIAs is placed in a pension.
It also suggests the Government vary pension contribution limits on a once-off basis to allow people, particularly late pension starters, to reinvest their SSIA fund in a pension.
Recent research commissioned by the IIF found that a quarter of SSIA savers plan to do the sensible thing and save or reinvest their funds. But a third don't yet know what they will do with the cash while nearly 20 per cent are planning to engage in some retail therapy.
The IIF, however, is gearing up to save the "spend, spend, spend" lobby from themselves and make them think ahead to that "rainy day".
An Post top brass are right to be worried
An Post management is talking tough about its future. Something must be done to bring the cost base down, says chief executive Donal Curtin.
The company remains on a financial "knife edge", he reminded the media gathered in the GPO yesterday. Chairwoman Margaret McGinley was equally bleak in her pronouncements.
An Post top brass are right to be worried. A few months ago Curtin unveiled a rescue plan for the company involving 1,450 redundancies. Progress on this. Virtually nil.
A recent dispute over mail sorting forced large parts of the company's operations to grind to a halt. If the main union at An Post, the CWU, baulks at the 1,450 figure and digs its heels in, a major industrial dispute could be in the offing.
That will obviously have a knock-on effect on An Post's already precarious financial position. It is forecasting an operating loss of €30 million in 2004. Not a great figure. But this figure is based on getting agreement with the CWU on redundancies. It is going to be a long year for Curtin and Co at An Post.
Mouthful from Monti
The European Commission wants consumers to play a more active role in the fight against cartels and anti-competitive practices generally. The Commissioner, Mario Monti, was in Dublin yesterday, preaching the competition message on European Competition Day. The Commission wants consumers to become more active in reporting market information to the commission.
A website has been set up, presumably with the intention of making it as easy as possible for ordinary consumers to file reports of suspected wrongdoing. The website address?
http://europa.eu.int/dgcomp/info-on-anti-competitive-practices
We kid you not.
Tietmeyer's lullaby
Perhaps it was the fault of the pre-lecture wine reception or maybe it was the poor ventilation in the Royal Irish Academy last Tuesday evening, but there was a definite air of sleepiness in the Meeting Room on Dublin's Dawson Street as former Bundesbank chief Prof Hans Tietmeyer expounded on the whys and wherefores of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).
His views on the need for a deepening of EMU structures will have been of particular interest to the great and good of economic life who had gathered to taste the droplets of wisdom.
Or at least they would have been if they had managed to stay awake. The numerous dozers among the audience seemed to find the business of keeping their eyes open more challenging as the lengthy talk progressed.
Happily for all, the sleepy listeners seemed to have gathered their senses when the time came for applause, joining in with the generous clapping that marked the end of the lecture.
Perhaps the sheer noise jolted them out of their dreams.
