Retired public service staff are to press the Government to draw up a plan for repealing emergency legislation that had been used to cut their pensions.
The Alliance of Retired Public Servants said, given the upturn in the economy, it had written to the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin seeking a meeting on the issue.
The group said the Government had used emergency powers over recent years to reduce all public service pensions over €12,000 by between 8 per cent and 28 per cent. It was difficult to see how the common good was served by a prolongation of the use of emergency legislation to reduce public service pensions.
The group said at a previous meeting with Mr Howlin last May the Minister had indicated his intention "as a matter of priority to move towards reducing the burden of the public service pension reduction, with the initial focus on people in receipt of low pensions, at the earliest date economic progress permitted".
Exit programme
The alliance said it "considers that, in improved economic circumstances, an exit programme should now be developed which will provide a framework for ending the use of emergency powers to reduce public service pensions".
The group said the retired public service, despite popular belief, was “not a rich and privileged group”.
“They have contributed to their pensions at levels considered appropriate by successive governments; the average public service pension is low – in the civil service only €19,000 per annum, with only a fraction of 1 per cent receiving pensions of over €100.000.”
The group said that public service pensioners did not receive the State pension and they received no exemptions from the universal social charge.
