Sir, – At a time when the majority of Irish private pensions were already in deficit, the then-government saw fit to raid that pot while retaining their own full personal pension rights (which are paid from out of current income).
The public sector pot couldn’t be raided because they haven’t got a pot.
Many private pensioners lost substantial portions of their pension entitlements as a result, and now face permanent austerity in retirement.
No recovery is possible for them.
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Recent mutterings about means-testing the contributory State pension should raise a red flag.
Once auto-enrolment in a private pension is up and running, the next cunning plan could be to means-test the State contributory pension and then to reduce it by the amount of income paid from the private pension. A tax by another name, it would once again penalise those who work to pay both current State contributions and the additional private fund contributions. – Yours, etc,
B KEOGH,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.