Pensions Age to ..... 72 !?

I posted in a thread about this oin pensions, but it seems to be gone now.

Im voting whoever says they will keep the pension age at 65 or 66.

At this stage of my life all I care about is how much i'll be taxed and when i get my state pension.

They are turning it into a carrot on a stick that you will get ever closer to but will never reach.

Ive had enough of FF and FG. Swore id never vote SF, but if they come put and promise me pension age stays at 65 then ill vote for them.

Lea and Michael have promised so much and not delivered (€50k before you get into the high tax bracket among other things), might be time to let someone else promise and hope they deliver.

The whole notion requires something of a radical overhaul of how we view society. The concept of pensions views society as revolving door of workers in and workers out. Gristle to the mill.

When modern pensions were originally conceived, it was built on the calculation that a certain proportion of people would die before they got to pension age, thereby making the system affordable. As one would expect, in the century since the number of people surviving to pension age has increased dramatically.

I'm not 100% sure what the optimal solution is. One where people can choose to retire at 65 on a full pension, without being forced to, seems obvious. We should also overhaul how pension payments work. Maybe increase the pension contributions from employers; make it mandatory for employers to pay (say) 5-10% of the employee's salary into a national pension fund. Half the payment goes into a social fund, the other half goes into a personal fund. Both funds are managed for interest over time and are legally/constitutionally protected from the government; i.e. they are not available to be used for state spending under any circumstances.

When the person retires then, they get a fixed payment from the social fund - regardless of how much they worked in their lifetime - and they also get top-up payments from their personal fund. This ensures that there is a minimum payment, but that there is salary-based aspect to it.

The big question over retirement is always about who is going to pay for the pensions. And the reason it's a question is because government always assume that future generations will pay for it. We need to reset that now to ensure that people working today, are paying for their own pensions rather than hoping that there will be money in the future which hasn't been raided by a future government, or hasn't disappeared because the economy has stagnated for a decade.

Good point, even if the pension age is raised to crazy ages like 72, just leave your job at 65 and go on the dole 😎

I'd agree with them if it was a case of TD's not getting their pensions until 72 also. They should lead by example.

We're already seeing this tbh. I personally know of half a dozen people who either lost a job in their 50s or gave one up and haven't made (or didn't make) any effort to find a new one between that time and their 65th birthday... Some of them even availed of state-funded Solás and University courses as past-times (i.e. doing courses that were interesting to them but which in no way enhanced their employment prospects). So while they weren't officially a pensioner, they were to all intents and purposes retired and living off the state.

I certainly won't be voting for them in a huff, I've never voted FF/FG so I've been waiting my whole life to get them out.

You don't know what will or won't happen with SF in power, there's only one way to find out.

Maxing out your tax-free pension contributions is the best thing you can do, I fully expect state pension to be scrapped in most countries by the time I hit pension age.

Funnily enough it seems like FF/FG have a magic money tree - many examples including the Children's Hospital, throwing more and more money at the health service every year without solving any issues, National Broadband Plan.