The Government has embarked on a €500,000 advertising campaign seeking to convince over 850,000 workers without a private pension not to depend solely on the State for their retirement income.
The Government needs 350,000 of these workers to respond to its slogan "think about tomorrow, today" by taking out a pension if it wants to achieve its target of increasing private pensions coverage from 50 per cent to 70 per cent of workers by 2006.
Speaking at the launch of National Pensions Awareness Week yesterday, the Minister for Social & Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, said the Government would assess the impact this year's pensions awareness campaign made before deciding whether to allocate more resources to the promotion of pensions in future budgets. "It will be on the table, I'm sure," she said.
The information campaign includes advertising on two national and 27 local radio stations, as well as notices on the back of five million grocery receipts in 102 stores over an eight-week period.
The Pensions Board, in conjunction with the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), has distributed 2,000 posters for display in campus locations.
"Young people are not particularly interested in pensions, but they are interested in income," Ms Coughlan said.
The Pensions Board also estimates that a potential 1.26 million people will be exposed to ads on in-store plasma screens over a two-week period, while up to 440,000 people could see advertisements on Dublin Bus.
