Kenny's remarks may fuel concern in elderly

CONCERNS AMONG the elderly that they may be targeted in the forthcoming budget won’t have been allayed by remarks made by Taoiseach Enda Kenny last night.

Asked about the possibility of pension reductions following weekend remarks by Minister of State at the Department of Finance Brian Hayes that the political system needs to overcome its inability to countenance budgetary cutbacks affecting older people, Mr Kenny replied the Government has a duty and responsibility to draft a budget.

“I am not going to speculate or get into discussion . . . It is a matter for the Ministers and Cabinet to collectively make their decision and that’s what we will do.”

He was speaking to reporters in Ballina where he launched the memoirs of former president of Ireland Mary Robinson. Mr Hayes said in an interview with The Irish Times last Saturday that pensioners were the one group to have come through the economic crash with their incomes intact.

While he stressed he was not talking about people who depended solely on the State pension, Mr Hayes said many older people told him they were “well-off”.

Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton said yesterday that wealthy people of all ages should make a contribution to national recovery.“In relation to Minister Hayes’s comments about older people doing very well, I think the principle has to be that people who are doing very well, whatever their age, should of course be making a contribution,” she said. “I’m slightly nonplussed at Minister Hayes’s concentration on older people.” She said no decision had been made on any element of the budget to be announced on December 5th, but “every heading” would be examined.

Ms Burton was speaking to reporters at Leinster House yesterday, where she presented an actuarial review of the social insurance fund to the chairwoman of the Oireachtas Committee on Social Protection, Joanna Tuffy. The fund had a provisional deficit of €1.5 billion last year, and Ms Burton has clashed with Fine Gael Ministers over her proposal to plug the deficit by raising PRSI.

“I want to offer an assurance . . . that every member of the Government values the contribution that the social insurance fund and our scheme of contributory and non-contributory pensions for older people make to the comfort and wellbeing of our older people in their retirement.”

Letters: page 17