Gavin Mendel-Gleason
Workers’ Party spokesperson Gavin Mendel-Gleason announced the proposal, saying that the government’s Pensions Roadmap was just a continuation of subsidies to private pension providers:
“In respect of pensions outside the very minimal state pension, the Roadmap’s ‘big idea’ is that there be a standard 30% pension-related tax relief credit for all workers, regardless of the tax rate which they pay. This is simply a continuation of a decades-old failed policy, of propping up by private pension groups by subsidising voluntary pension contributions through a tax break.”
“Any pensions plan based on tax relief for investment in private pensions is bound to fail – especially for low- and middle-income workers.”
Mendel-Gleason said that the Workers’ Party favoured a move away from private pension schemes entirely, arguing:
“Private pension schemes are entirely beyond public, democratic control and influence. They may choose whatever investments they which – and many choose risky investments, which make their shareholders money in the short-term, but are highly unreliable in delivering a pension for workers.
“This is why, time and time again, we have seen generations of pensioners retire into poverty, having seen a lifetime’s investment into a private pension scheme disappear. Why, then, is our government insistent on maintaining them as the bedrock of our future?”
Mendel-Gleason concluded:
“The Workers’ Party are proposing a mandatory contributory state pension scheme, based on the Canadian model, in which worker and state contribute a fixed amount over the lifetime of the worker. This would produce a fund in the billions which can be used to invest in both productive industries and in public housing.
“Unlike the private schemes that our government continues to prop up, a public fund’s investment priorities would be determined not by short-term gain for shareholders, but by the long-term financial security of retirees.”