Who is guilty of the pension swindle?

Bren­dan Ogle on why we should be able to access the state pen­sion at 65 like our hyp­o­crit­i­cal politi­cians do.

‘OH NO WE DIDN’T’ – ‘ OH YES YOU BLOODY WELL DID!’

Last Tues­day (21/1/20) Unite’s Irish Exec­u­tive Coun­cil passed a motion com­mit­ting us to cam­paign­ing to restore the state pen­sion age to 65 in the Repub­lic of Ire­land. This was on foot of a motion brought for­ward from the Water­ford Com­mu­ni­ty Branch. Yes­ter­day (23/1/20) I attend­ed a News Con­fer­ence for the ‘STOP67’ cam­paign, sup­port­ed by ICTU, that seeks to pre­vent the enact­ment of the leg­isla­tive pro­vi­sion that would see the cur­rent pen­sion age of 66 rise fur­ther to 67 in Jan­u­ary next year. The back­ground to this issue, which has sud­den­ly become an elec­tion issue, is extra­or­di­nary and exem­pli­fies both the hypocrisy in Irish pol­i­tics and the fail­ure of the Irish media to effec­tive­ly call that hypocrisy out.

When we all retire is of course linked to when we can draw down our state pen­sion, or as I like to con­sid­er it my saved wages paid in retire­ment, that we accu­mu­late and pro­vide for over a life­time of work. In 2010 Fian­na Fail and the Greens in Gov­ern­ment did a deal with the ‘Troi­ka’ that required us to increase our state pen­sion age which was then 65. Remem­ber the par­ties, Fian­na Fail and the Greens.

Labour cam­paigned in the 2011 Gen­er­al Elec­tion against those changes, and much else (sssh­h­hh, don’t men­tion water charges)! When it was point­ed out that this was part of the Troi­ka bailout Labour were bull­ish – or was it anoth­er word begin­ning with ‘bull’ – in their ‘Frankfurt’s way or Labour’s way’ response. Post-elec­tion how­ev­er they couldn’t wait to run out to the RDS and feign anguish at a spe­cial con­fer­ence before leap­ing in to coali­tion to prop up their lat­est of many right wing Gov­ern­ments. Once in office of course it was quick­ly ‘Frankfurt’s way’ and then Min­is­ter Joan Bur­ton quick­ly put the boot into those about to retire.  As ear­ly as 15 June 2011 Bur­ton was in the Dail espous­ing the:

‘fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple that peo­ple need to par­tic­i­pate in the work­force for longer and they need to con­tribute more towards their pen­sions if they are to achieve the income they expect or would like to have in retire­ment’.

Wow.

The 2011 elec­tion was in March, Labour cam­paigned against the increase in the pen­sion age, but by June just three months lat­er not only had they smashed one of many, many elec­tion pledges but they had made the smash­ing of it a ‘fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple’. Despite the lies in the run up to the elec­tion, once in Gov­ern­ment a Labour Min­is­ter who lat­er went on to be the par­ty leader and Tanaiste, and the cur­rent leader Bren­dan Howl­in in no less influ­en­tial an office than the Depart­ment of Pub­lic Expen­di­ture, made mak­ing our retire­ment ages go up to 68 by 2028 a ‘fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple’.

But wait. That is unless of course you were one of them. Because guess what? The changes don’t apply to Politi­cians! They are still allowed to get the state pen­sion at age 65. In fact per­haps a relat­ed news sto­ry here is that we now have actu­al, fac­tu­al and leg­isla­tive proof of some­thing many of us have long sus­pect­ed, that based on Joan Burton’s own words it is clear that ‘fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples’ don’t apply to Politi­cians.

What utter hypocrisy.

Fine Gael of course were, and are, delight­ed. Lis­ten to Regi­na O’Doherty jus­ti­fy­ing this abuse of work­ing peo­ple in the run up to the elec­tion. At the time Enda Ken­ny as Taoiseach was hap­py to give glib answers to a right­ly irate oppo­si­tion while the Labour Par­ty went around doing his dirty work for him. If that lot stay in Gov­ern­ment look for­ward to ever increas­ing retire­ment ages and low­er net pen­sions in per­pe­tu­ity.

So fast for­ward to this 2020 elec­tion cam­paign. Labour, the Greens and Fian­na Fail who all did this haven’t been in Gov­ern­ment for a while and they all want back there. They are look­ing for a way to get votes. SIPTU’S Michael Taft yes­ter­day described, cor­rect­ly, these pen­sion changes as ‘a cyn­i­cal move on low paid peo­ple that was high­ly regres­sive and social­ly dam­ag­ing’.

These par­ties know this now. But what is worse is they knew it then too. They knew it when they did it, and they did it any­way. Because they don’t care what is regres­sive. They don’t care what is social­ly dam­ag­ing. All they real­ly care about is that they get elect­ed, and they are even pre­pared to use cam­paigns against their own poli­cies, their own deci­sions in Gov­ern­ment, to get back into Gov­ern­ment. So they can do it to us again. Why are they not being loud­ly called out on all of this in the media? Even at the Press Con­fer­ence yes­ter­day nobody dared say ‘Labour did this’. The Leader of Fian­na Fail who sat at the cab­i­net table and put these changes on the agen­da, with Green Par­ty leader Eamon Ryan there too as a fel­low Min­is­ter, are now cyn­i­cal­ly cam­paign­ing against the issue they cre­at­ed. There was an ele­phant in that room yes­ter­day big­ger than any ele­phant in the Phoenix Park. The entire media was rep­re­sent­ed there. And nobody said it. Nobody called it out.

I want to lend my sup­port to the ‘STOP67’ Cam­paign, for what it’s worth. Well done SIPTU, ICTU, the Nation­al Women’s Coun­cil of Ire­land, Age Action Ire­land and Active Retire­ment Ire­land. Let’s #STOP67. And then lets #STOP66. And then lets #RESTORE65.

And while we are at it what about if, for and once and for all, we stop being silent and fail­ing to call out the insin­cer­i­ty, the hypocrisy, the the­atrics and the pan­tomime pol­i­tics. Sure­ly as a coun­try we are bet­ter than this.

Bren­dan Ogle

ENDS