Madam, - Recent discussions about the rise in public sector employment levels raises in my mind the looming spectre of considerable future commitments to the funding of public sector pensions.
As a private sector employee funding my own private pension scheme with whatever spare cash I can afford to contribute, and also receiving a modest contribution from my employer, I find it worrying that I am contributing to three pension schemes, two of which are not even mine. It is even more worrying when I consider that one of the other schemes will give the beneficiary significantly more money in terms of final annual pension, it is also for the remainder of that person's life and, if I am not mistaken, it will give the widow/widower a percentage amount in the event of their spouse's death.
It is financially impossible, given the constraints of my mortgage and family responsibilities, to grant myself such a generous pension package, no matter what age I began contributing, other than by obtaining a public sector jobs.
I believe that these present onerous and unfair contributions placed upon private sector employees to contribute to public sector employees at the expense of their own contributions should cease and the financial burden should be transferred back to them to pay. My fund, which will never match the public sector level, is made up of contributions from the ability of myself and my employer to contribute. By contrast, the pension of the State employee is guaranteed by my tax contribution and removed from my salary before I can even contribute to my own pension fund.
I propose that through the tax system, State employees should contribute with appropriate and real contributions to their own pension funds and that final pensions should reflect their contributions and investments - rather than arbitrary levels decided outside economic reality which place unfair rates of tax on private sector employees who have to fund State employees before they can provide for their own families. - Yours, etc,
DAVID DELANEY, Sadleir Hall, Dunboyne, Co Meath.