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OPINION:Commentators who raise this issue fail to recognise that life is already difficult for many older people, writes EAMON TIMMINS

SINCE THE ESRI’s Prof John FitzGerald and The Irish TimesEconomics Editor Dan O’Brien raised the issue in recent days, commentators have piled in behind them setting out the case why pensions could, or should, be cut. They were not cut last year; inflation is falling and therefore pensioners are gaining; pensioners should share the pain when we are all suffering; cutting the State pension would also provide big savings to the exchequer at one stroke of a pen, unlike other new forms of taxation which would require considerable ground work to be done first.