Sir, – Learning recently that the National Pensions Reserve Fund is being wound up and the money put to productive use gave me some satisfaction. Its demise is very welcome, as would be the demise of all salaries from the public purse that are in excess of our Taoiseach’s earnings and in excess of the Government’s pay caps.
It is now five years since I met the late Brian Lenihan in his constituency office in June of 2008.
There was speculation at the time that the country was facing a possible recession. After a courteous but robust exchange about the purpose of my visit, I advised I was “here to help”. I believed the country was short of money and I wanted to know how much. With some reluctance he said €3 billion. I suggested that this was no problem and offered the following options. Suspending private sector pensions tax subsidy for one year would cover this. Should more be required he could use the €20 billion in National Pensions Reserve Fund which was losing €1 billion per annum at the time. Furthermore, there was the €100 billion private sector pensions funds mostly invested abroad, to which the Government had contributed 50 per cent.
His response was “This would cause a run on the banks”. It appears that neither he nor I knew that the banks were on the run anyway. – Yours, etc,
MICHAEL TERRY,
College Grove,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.