Thousands of workers will end their days with inadequate incomes, bordering on poverty, a trade union seminar on pensions heard yesterday.
"Whereas the provision of pensions may be diminishing, the need for pensions is increasing as it is estimated that the number of people over 65 will increase from the current 11.4 per cent to 18.2 per cent in 2016," the SIPTU vice-president, Mr Jack O'Connor, told delegates at the seminar in Cork, organised by his union.
In 1995 the ESRI reported that 63 per cent of people in private-sector employment did not have occupational pensions, Mr O'Connor said. The union was concerned that this figure might be increasing. "According to the National Pensions Board there are currently five people at work for every person aged over 65, but by the middle of the century it is estimated that there will be only two people working for every person aged over 65," he said. SIPTU was starting a three-pronged drive to tackle pension under-provision:
at the level of the workplace, for private sector workers.
nationally, on behalf of lower-paid public sector workers.
centrally, through stepping up its campaign to have the contributory old-age pension increased to 34 per cent of average industrial earnings.
He expressed alarm at "the rapid growth in defined contribution schemes as distinct from defined benefit schemes", since defined contributions did not generally guarantee a specific rate of pension.