A chara, – Diarmaid Ferriter (“Pension age fudge just another reason for young to emigrate”, Opinion & Analysis, September 23rd) repeats the nonsense that it is the older cohort who will benefit from maintaining current pension age limits at the expense of younger people.
As a pensioner in my seventies, already in receipt of the State pension, I will not benefit in the slightest from keeping the current limits or lose out if they are changed.
My opposition is based on solidarity with people younger than me. It is indeed the men and women in their twenties and thirties who will lose out, especially those in heavy manual work who will be compelled to carry on working when they should have retired.
Of course, people who want to work beyond retirement age should be facilitated in doing so. In my case, I wanted to stay in my job after 65, but my contract of employment did not allow it, and the company wanted a younger worker. And I acknowledged that older workers like me should not hold back the careers of younger workers.
The young are not being gouged to pay for the old. The old are standing in solidarity with those who are young but who, one day, will be old. – Is mise,
EOIN Ó MURCHÚ,
Cluain Dolcáin,
Baile Átha Cliath 22.