Sir, - Like the rose, an amnesty by any other name will smell as sweet, especially in the nostrils of the tax dodger. That pleasure is heightened by the fact that, according to Jim Mitchell TD, the trawl by the Revenue Commissioners is restricted to the past 16 years.
In marked contrast, to qualify for a full contributory old-age pension, a person is required to have made an average of 48 contributions per year from 1953 or from the year of their first contribution, to the year of their reaching the age of 66. Gaps may have arisen due to one having had to emigrate, or as a result of the embargo which applied from the mid-1960s to 1974 on employers deducting the cost of a "stamp" from the pay of those whose salaries exceeded £750 a year. Many of us discovered too late that we could have made a voluntary contribution.
These gaps reduce one's average. Result: a reduced pension. The fact that the emigrant saved the State from having to pay dole and that the latter was tax compliant during the embargo is not taken into account. Even the much vaunted £10 increase for pensioners applies only to those on full pension as all others are paid a percentage based on their average contributions.
I would suggest the least number of contributions now required for a full pension - i.e. 480 over 10 years - be taken as a benchmark against which applicants' entitlements be measured. Were politicians payrelated pensions to be assessed on their average attendance or on their contributions to Dail debates, what a saving there would be to the coffers of the State.
The monies collected from this new amnesty could best be used to compensate all those who have been cheated out of their rightful pension over the years because of the anomalies in the current regulations. Perhaps it is time that the grey vote be heard and heeded. - Yours, etc.,
Pat O'Connell, St Brendan's Drive, Coolock, Dublin 5.