Pension worries aired at seminar

CONCERNS ABOUT huge drops in income in old age, and worries that children will be left destitute when they reach retirement because of inadequate pension planning were just two of the issues raised at a pension seminar in Dublin yesterday.

The seminar also heard several calls for a voluntary, rather than a mandatory, increase in retirement age.

Demand for places at the morning seminar was such that the Department of Social and Family Affairs had to organise a second series of workshops later yesterday to cater for the large numbers.

It was the first in a series of consultation seminars organised to inform the Government of the public's views on pension policy. The Green Paper on Pensions has already been produced and consultations will continue until the middle of this year. The Government will then produce its long-term plan for pensions.

Orlaigh Quinn of the Department of Social and Family Affairs' pension policy unit told the seminar that major challenges lay ahead because the existing pensions system was not sustainable.

She said pension costs would have increased by €12 billion, or from 5 to 13 per cent of GDP by 2050.

Fergus Whelan, on behalf of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said that many people would be in for a rude awakening when they reached retirement age because they would not receive the pensions they expected.

"People are living with a false assessment of what they are going to get and there's going to be more and more very disappointed workers, but it will be too late for them to do anything about it."

That was the reason why James Lenehan (67) from Dunquin, Co Kerry, attended the seminar. "I'm concerned about my children and my grandchildren because they don't seem to be saving and putting the money away."

Clodagh Donnelly from Dublin went to the seminar to ensure that the voice of older women was heard by the Government as it drew up its pensions policy. She had to give up her job when she got married in 1958.

"And then when you wanted to get back into the work force you had the age bar, which was only lifted relatively recently and consequently there's no credit given for the years you spent at home.

"So many women don't have a pension or have a very reduced pension."

Places can be booked online (www.pensionsgreenpaper.ie) for pension seminars in Waterford, Cork, Tullamore and Sligo next week.