Sir, – Far from being a "fantasy" that Britain would continue to pay state pensions under a unity scenario (Newton Emerson, "No, the UK will not pay a united Ireland's pension", Opinion & Analysis, February 10th), it is a legal reality. Entitlement to the state pension is determined by an individual's record of national insurance contributions.
Similarly, when or if Northerners start paying PRSI contributions, their state pension entitlement will be in two parts, determined by their contributions under the British and Irish systems. European law governs this, as does the Convention on Social Security between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the Government of Ireland, signed in Dublin on February 1st, 2019.
It may be fashionable to break international law in a “limited way”, but to suggest that Britain would stop honouring historic contribution records might only encourage those searching hard for “Brexit opportunities”. – Yours, etc,
MIKE TOMLINSON,
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Belfast.
Sir, – Newton Emerson claims that the continued payment of NI pensions by the UK post-reunification is unsupported by any “precedents of independence”.
In fact, one of the crucial points of Brexit was when the UK committed to honouring its debt for obligations accrued during membership, including paying for the pensions of UK citizens who had worked in EU institutions.
Governments benefit from individual labour in many ways, not just through direct taxes such as income tax, or via indirect taxes such as VAT on good purchased or corporation tax on companies they worked for, but from taxes gleaned from the children that they raised, or from the social benefits of their of volunteering and community work. Natural logic about pensions is that people who have spent their lives contributing to the welfare of the state have earned the right for the state to return the favour when their working lives are over. Whether the government has made a good fist of running the state over those decades and managed social and financial affairs well is neither here nor there. The obligation remains.
The notion that the UK would simply keep the money and walk away from its obligations is unjust and absurd. Even if this was the approach that Britain shamefully took in respect of its other colonies in the distant past, it would not be acceptable today.
That said, given the apparent character of the individuals who make up the current UK government, behaviour that is shameful, absurd, unjust and unacceptable might well be taken for granted. – Yours, etc,
JOHN THOMPSON,
Phibsboro,
Dublin 7.