Madam, – Will the Government be good enough to publish a list of approved commercial financial institutions to which the proposed private contributions can be made, and when doing so, reflect for a moment on what outfits might have made the list if this scheme had been launched three short years ago? The names Lehman, Anglo and even Madoff come to mind.
The idea of incentivised additional pension provision is a fine one, but I fear will only succeed if the scheme involves voluntary top-up contributions to the social welfare fund or an industry-financed State guarantee underpinning the obligations of the private providers. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Why all the fuss about suggesting people pay toward their pension?
Recent generations have a life span of up to at least 70 years. They spent the first 15 or less in school, and then went to work until they were 65. If they were lucky they might get five years of retirement (housewives don’t seem to be allowed to retire). Out of a 70-year life that means 50 years spent working.
More recently, my generation can expect to be alive and active at 100 years. We’ll have spent the first 25 years in education, leaving 45 years to work to 70, with the final 30 years of retirement. Someone has to pay for that, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that in a 100-year-life, of which 55 is spent not working, we are expected to pay toward the cost of our retirement.
That’s shouldn’t be the issue.
What should be is why my generation have to take on a 35-year mortgage with two full-time incomes to pay off a bland badly-built house that doesn’t even have a proper driveway, never mind a garden. My father was able to support two adults, educate five children through to third level, pay a mortgage on a house with a driveway, garage and gardens, provide all the trappings of a middle- class life on one income. So why do his children need two incomes to pay for a smaller house with fewer children, plus transport and childcare costs.
This shift in income and spending profiles occurred as a direct result of Fianna Fáil politicians, and the other politicians who kept them in power so long, pushing through policies at the behest of their corporate backers.
Therefore, these policies can be reversed if we elect honest politicians, who are not driven by money and who have not already been bought by corporate interests.
However, until the people who delude themselves that there are no consequences to voting Fianna Fáil, grow up and face what they’ve done, and the implications their vote has for all of us – not just Fianna Fáil voters – it seems we are in store for more of the same politics, with the efforts of the many being diverted to maintain the wealth of the few. Nama being the prime example. – Yours, etc,