The report of the Commission on Pensions and other supplementary material have been published by the Department of Social Protection. They are available here.
Category: Social conditions
The website of the Pensions Commission is available here.
Part of the material presented to the Commission generated headlines while some of the issues the Commission will tackle were addressed in this piece by Sean Barrett.
Robert Sweeney of TASC writes on the decline of inequality in Ireland.
In sum, income inequality, according to the best evidence, has fallen; Ireland, by conventional measures, has the most progressive tax system in the EU; and Ireland has a very high share of low-work intensity households. It is also the case that in historical terms our inequality is high, and differences in living standards have likely increased. Lower income households basically work as much as the rest of society, and the poorest pay almost the same share of their income in tax as the rich. Facts are facts and needn’t be quarrelled with. But there are many ways to present them.
Former Chief Executive of the NTMA, Michael Somers, writes in The Irish Times ‘We continue to ignore massive pensions elephant in the room‘.
Here’s a piece from RTE’s Brainstorm series that looks to explain some of the factors behind Ireland’s outlier position in this chart.
