Sir, – I wish Joan Burton and Eamon Gilmore would stop repeating themselves by telling us they have retained the “core pension”.
It doesn’t matter to us which way they reduce the money in our pockets. What matters is that it is steadily being reduced. We have much more to pay out of that “core pension”.
Last year, we had to pay more for telephone and electricity; the recent Budget will mean that we will have to pay more for medicines on prescription, health insurance (due to the reduction of the tax allowance) and telephone bills. This Government continues to reduce the income for medical card eligibility, thereby removing thousands of medical cards from pensioners.
We are expected to pay more and more bills from the same pension. There are many ways to skin a cat and we are not being fooled. – Yours, etc,
PHIL SHERIDAN,
St Conlon’s Road,
Nenagh, Co Tipperary.