Retired public service pensioners are angry at the Government's decision to award them increases of just 3 per cent under the productivity element of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work. Many are also angry at the public service unions for accepting the arrangement.
Just a few hundred pensioners turned up for a planned protest at the Dail yesterday. They blamed the poor turnout on the bad weather and the fact that the unions had advised people not to attend. The unions made their announcement after deciding on Tuesday to accept the 3 per cent offer from the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy.
Members of the public service pensioners' committee are to meet senior Department of Finance officials today to hear details of the increases. However, judging by their mood yesterday, they are unlikely to change their opinion that they have been short-changed.
"IMPACT has sold us down the Swanee," according to Mr Marcus Balfe, a former administrator with Dublin Corporation. "Mr McCreevy says you can't restructure pensioners or make them more productive, but we were working flat out when we were there."
He estimates that the decision to award him a 3 per cent increase will leave him £700 a year worse off than if his pension had been increased in line with the pay award granted to his successor in the job.
The chairman of the pensioners' committee, Mr Sean Geraghty, was equally critical of his union, the ASTI. A retired post-primary teacher, he said his pension entitlements are now £1,200 a year less than someone still working when the PCW restructuring deal was concluded.
The Irish Nurses' Organisation, SIPTU and INTO were among the other unions branded as traitors yesterday.
A former FAS worker said: "McCreevy came on the telly last night and spiked our guns, but we'll be back. This is no more settled than I'm the man in the moon. McCreevy is forgetting that pensioners have free travel passes and they love opportunities for using them."
Several TDs spoke to the protesters yesterday.