Madam, – Now that Mr Noonan and his friends have decided that our pensions can be levied, are we to expect Prize Bonds or Post Office savings to be the next targets? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The Government proposal to tax existing pension funds amounts to the prudent paying for the sins of the reckless. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Levying a charge on private pension funds because their investments aren’t “local” enough smacks of Zimbabwe’s policy of asset indigenisation. Surely engaging with pension funds to encourage them to invest in viable government employment creation initiatives and other ventures would have been more productive?
Are all privately held assets now at risk? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Now that Irish private-sector pension funds can be raided, why do bondholders of busted banks and gold-plated public-sector pensions remain out of reach? Is it simply because we are softer targets than German, French and Irish public-sector pensioners? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – A point that appears not to have been much commented on is the fact that the proposed levy on pension funds is a levy on pension income for life, not just four years. Once the levy has reduced the capital fund, the resulting pension income will be reduced forever. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The pension levy is, of course, a purely temporary measure for the duration of the crisis. Readers may recall that income tax was also a purely temporary measure for the duration of a crisis, the crisis in question being the Napoleonic wars. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Can somebody explain why it is equitable that private pension savings will now attract an annual tax, yet public-sector pensions will not also be reduced accordingly? Is this not another example of civil servants enjoying unfair benefits of job security and guaranteed pensions that are but the stuff of dreams to ordinary people? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In the recent election we replaced one set of teachers with another.
Thus, how can we expect their approach to resolving our budget deficits to differ from the previous regime?
It’s not in their DNA to take the hard decisions and cut the bloated salaries, pensions and overstaffing in the Civil Service. Instead, we get the easy solution of raiding the pensions of the private sector.
Who will now invest in a private pension? Who will now look to move their savings out of reach of these predators? It won’t be too long before there is nothing more to raid and this Government will be dumped by the electorate in much the same way as Fianna Fáil was. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Your editorial (May 12th) in relation to the pension levy makes the point that “the transfer – by government fiat – of large amounts of wealth from one group within society to another risks undermining social cohesion” and “those who lose out may come to resent those to whom their resources are being transferred”. Is that not what has been happening for ages through the taxation system that funds public services? Why is the pension levy different? – Yours, etc,
Madam, – The recent Government decision regarding the levy on private pensions reminds me of the metaphor of boiling the frog. If you place a frog in a pot of boiling water, he will immediately jump out of the pot. However, if you place a frog in a pot of cold water and gradually raise the temperature, he will be impervious to the danger from the rising temperature and will remain in the pot until boiled through.
The Irish citizen is like that frog. The temperature of the water in which we are immersed was raised by an overheating economy with a poorly regulated banking system. A series of catastrophic political decisions by the last coalition government raised the heat further. We have now lost our economic sovereignty and the temperature dial is now in the hands of the troika. I will resist the temptation to stray into another metaphor regarding the number of chefs in the kitchen.
The fate of the Irish citizen is largely in the hands of external forces who have decided that you may boil the frog but bondholders may not be exposed to the mildest thermal challenge. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Why is the Government raising funds via the private pension levy now? The reason is that there are no representatives in the Dáil that will stand up for the middle-class groups that save for their retirement. The Government has a large majority, Fianna Fáil cannot with any authority speak out, and the rest are looking after a different constituency. – Yours, etc,