Sir, – Like many commentators, Fiona Reddan focused on the tiny number of public servants who retire on large pensions before concluding that public service pensions are "very generous" ("Are public sector pensions justified?", Pension Focus 2013, November 19th). However, official figures show 78 per cent of civil servants retire on pensions of less than €30,000 a year. For most this is their entire retirement income as those who joined the public service before 1995 are not entitled to any State old-age pension.
The same figures show that just 6 per cent of retired civil servants have pensions of more than €50,000 a year. So, while it’s regularly cited as an example of public service generosity, former secretary general Dermot McCarthy’s extravagant pension is so vastly untypical that it fails to inform the wider debate on pensions.
Furthermore, a new public service pension scheme was introduced this year, which is expected to slash the public service pension bill by a third by the middle of the century. Among other changes, new entrants to the public service will now have their pensions calculated on the basis of career average earnings instead of earnings at the time of retirement, while pension increases will be linked to inflation rather than the pay of the grade from which a pensioner retires. – Yours, etc,
BERNARD HARBOR,
Head of Communications,
IMPACT trade union,
Nerney’s Court,
Dublin 1.