Our association is also finding common cause with other pensioners on the national stage.
Joe Little who represents RTÉRSA on the Executive of the Irish Senior Citizens Parliament (ISCP) reports:
The ISCP’s annual Pre-Budget Survey of members drew 494 responses on issues ranging from pressures on household finances to the quality and availability of health, social care and transport services. A big “thank you” to all our members who participated before the mid-May deadline,
The key results will be published with the ISCP’s pre-budget submission. But much of the data has already informed the contribution by the Parliament representatives at the 21st Social Inclusion Forum convened later in May by the Minister for Social Protection, Dara Calleary. Watch out for details in the Parliament’s September newsletter. Current and past newsletters are available on our own and the Parliament’s website, www.seniors.ie
RTÉRSA CONGRATULATED AT PARLIAMENT’S ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
The Annual Parliament Meeting (APM) on the 13th May at Dublin’s Liberty Hall was attended by 70 delegates representing ISCP affiliates including retired sections of several trade unions representing, for example, nurses, ESB and financial services employees as well as general unions.
RTÉRSA proposed a motion criticizing the government’s decision to kill a Private Members Bill which would have given occupational pensioners’ associations, such as RTÉRSA, the right to be heard at the WRC whenever a cut to our pensions is being discussed by unions and employers. At present, pensioners have only six months following their retirement to air a grievance about their payment at the WRC. And they must act as individual complainants, not collectively.
BACKGROUND
The emasculation in 2014 of pensions of 15,000 retirees from Aer Lingus and our airports, prompted the ISCP to canvas all political parties to devise a bill to remove those ageist restrictions and in 2021, the then People Before Profit TD, Brid Smith, developed the Industrial Relations (Provisions in Respect of Pension Entitlements of Retired Workers).
It was reinstated in the current Dáil, but before advancing to Committee Stage, the Fine Gael Enterprise Minister, Peter Burke, persuaded the cabinet not to invest taxpayers’ money in removing this discrimination against the tens of thousands of pensioners immediately concerned. This was despite the the Irish Congress of Trade Unions offering its general support for the Bill from .
Proposing the motion, RTÉRSA’s Joe Little said the cabinet’s support for the employers’ body, IBEC, on this issue “may yet prove a fateful decision for the tens of thousands of civil and public service workers who will have no protection when the day comes for their pension benefits to be further reduced”.
With only five abstentions, APM urged its Executive to examine other avenues for progressing the cause of “Nothing About Us Without Us” where occupational pensions are concerned and recommended that, to that end, it should urgently consider using international human rights forums.
CONGRATS!
APM also welcomed the RTÉRSA’a success in persuading the government to refuse RTÉ’s recent request to raid the savings of its defined benefit pensioners by transferring the cost of administering the scheme from their former employer to the scheme itself.
The motion stated that our association’s victory “had prevented the state from setting a costly precedent for several thousand ISCP members who depend on schemes sponsored by Commercial State Bodies”.
Phil Healy
Chair,
RTÉ Retired Staff Association (DB)