Many will still vote with their pockets in mind
When drafting the next programme for government, pensioners must be looked after, writes Philip Ryan
SOME in Fine Gael accept they have been gazumped by Fianna Fail on the pension age debacle. And it is a fact that the scramble to make election manifesto figures fit saw Fianna Fail offer soon-to-be pensioners a better deal than Fine Gael.
After a week of confusion in both parties, Micheal Martin published his manifesto last Friday and pledged to defer the increase in the State pension age to 67 next year despite it costing €217m.
Martin also said Fianna Fail would pay pensioners a transitional payment from the age of 65 to 66 which will be equal to a weekly pension.
Despite being told about the demands of pensioners on the doorsteps, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar decided to hold firm on the Government’s plan to increase the pension age in 2021.
Varadkar said Fine Gael in government would introduce a transitional payment but only for people forced to retire at 66.
This means people forced to retire at 65 won’t get a payment matching their pension but they also won’t have to go to the dole office.
Instead, they will be automatically given €203 a week, which is the same as a Jobseeker’s payment but won’t be forced to explain to social welfare officers their attempts to find work in their mid-60s.
Fianna Fail is offering a weekly transitional payment matching your State pension which could be up to €248.30 per week. It’s a costly measure and will set the taxpayer back by an extra €150m a year.
But the view in Fianna Fail is that the pension age will be central to government formation talks no matter who’s sitting around the table.
“The real politick is that when it comes to drafting the next programme for government, pensioners are going to have to be looked after,” a senior Fianna Fail TD said. “It’s going to be costly but it has to be done.”
Fine Gael hopes that as the campaign goes on Fianna Fail will come undone on its major promise and the electorate will see it as a reckless commitment.
But given how it has taken off as an issue on the doorsteps, Fianna Fail is happy to take that risk. Fine Gael likens Martin’s election pledge on pensions to former Fianna Fail Taoiseach Jack Lynch’s promise to abolish motor tax for private cars in the 1970s.
“It’s like when they promised to abolish motor tax and I can guarantee you he will backtrack on his commitment on the pension once he’s in government,” a Fine Gael minister said.
But the reality is Fine Gael did consider similar measures before it settled on sticking with the age increase.
Even the Taoiseach seemed to commit to a transitional payment matching the State pension for everyone forced to retire from 65 onwards.
Last Wednesday, while campaigning in Limerick, he said: “Certainly, what people are saying to us on the doors and on the streets, what our candidates are saying back to us, is that there is an anomaly.
“There are people who are required by their contracts to retire at 65 or 66, before the new retirement age, and they don’t want to have to sign on and we hear that, we get that, we accept that’s a problem.
“So we’re working on a proposal to put in place a form of State transition pension that means that people will, in those circumstances, be able to get their pension early.”
Asked if it would be the same amount as the State pension, he said “that’s the plan”.
A couple of hours later,
Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty released a statement announcing she was introducing a transitional payment. The only difference was that it was only for people retiring at 66.
“Tonight, I can confirm that this new transition pension will be paid at a rate equivalent to the Contributory State Pension. This change provides financial certainty to people retiring at 66,” she said.
Attempts to find clarity on what Fine Gael’s actual position on the pension was proved impossible. Senior party figures running the campaign didn’t even know.
One senior figure in Doherty’s own camp even suggested the 66 figure may have been a typo and it should have read 65. In Fine Gael headquarters, there was confusion over why the Taoiseach’s comments didn’t match the statement they issued under the Social Protection Minister’s name.
The following day, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe’s spokesperson could not even give clarity and would only say the party was listening to voters. It was all very ramshackle.
It wasn’t much better in Fianna Fail. Last Monday, Martin clearly indicated he planned to defer the pension age increase, only to have his campaign team issue a statement quoting the party’s social protection spokesperson Willie O’Dea, which made no commitment on deferring the increase. Meanwhile, Mr O’Dea was putting pressure on the party to stop the increase and do something for those retiring at 65. Martin was initially resistant to making a significant pension pledge and was supported by the party’s public expenditure spokesperson Barry Cowen. But their minds were changed by O’Dea and finance spokesperson Michael McGrath who set out the electoral reality of standing still on the issue.
Finally, they decided they couldn’t be undercut by Sinn Fein, which wants to reduce the pension age to 65, and settled on deferring the increase and buying off those who retire at 65.
Senior Fine Gael campaign sources say Varadkar fully understood the dangers associated with the pension issue from his time in Department of Social Protection but was similarly aware of the cost implications.
Some in the party wanted to appease those demanding that the pension age be deferred, but in the end it was decided they couldn’t reverse a decision aimed at addressing the ticking time bomb that is the cost of pensions. They hope voters will realise deferring the increase will mean people who are due to retire in 30 or 40 years’ time will be given a pittance of a pension, because the days of €5 per week annual hikes will be long gone due to the cost of footing the bill.
The fact is thousands of extra people are entitled to State pensions every year and the cost only keeps getting higher. Fine Gael seems to believe voters won’t think selfishly of themselves when it comes to marking their ballot sheets.
The so-called salt and pepper voters, workers aged 50 plus, are already looking at the retirement finish line and won’t like to see it moved 12 months down the road by Fine Gael. They are a powerful vote base where Fine Gael is already losing support and needs to make ground quickly if it is to figure in the next government formation talks.
It’s a big gamble by Varadkar and Fine Gael to essentially gift these voters to Fianna Fail, or even to Sinn Fein, with two weeks to go before polling day. A lot will depend on how voters react to Fine Gael’s strategy of trying to convince them that Fianna Fail cannot be trusted with power.
But, in reality, most people will vote with their pockets in mind.
‘A lot will depend on how voters react to Fine Gael’s strategy...’