Pensioners say govt ‘misled’ over pension increases

Pensioners’ union Ekysy on Monday said the government’s claim that it has allocated €13.5 million of extra funding to cover increases to pensions for low-income pensioners is “misleading”.

It said the figure is “the product of accounting alchemy”, and that “in reality, there is not a single euro of additional cost” to the government as a result of the decision.

“The state will simply not benefit from the €13.5m, because it is neither fair nor socially acceptable for low-income pensioners to receive an increase from the social insurance fund and for the government to then deduct it from their ‘small cheque’,” it said.

The ‘small cheque’ is a bonus payment paid to low-income pensioners who earn below a certain threshold, with Ekysy in effect stating that the increases announced by the government last week will be effectively cancelled out by the fact that those increases will place pensioners above the maximum threshold to receive the ‘small cheque’.

However, on this front, Ekysy did express relief that the government elected to not include increases in pensions paid by the social insurance fund in calculations regarding which pensioners receive the ‘small cheque’ this December.

According to the union, in previous years, the government has cut off all pensioners earning above a certain amount, even if they were only pushed over the threshold by legally-mandated increases to the social insurance fund pension.

As such, it said, some low-income pensioners were effectively left out of pocket by being deprived of the ‘small cheque’ bonus.

“We recall that both last year and in previous years, the immediate and dynamic intervention of Ekysy was required to prevent the unfair deduction or reduction of the ‘small cheque’ due to the small increase in social insurance fund pensions,” it said.

The government had said last week that its decision to cover the cost of increases to the state pension would last until June 30, and that a total of 24,000 households would benefit from the move.