Recently the Minister of Finance announced that the third pillar pension will be introduced through two voluntary schemes. The measures being taken will result in participants being entitled to two pensions: the contributory State social security pension and the private one. This is but one step in the right direction.

Implicitly the minister is recognising that the first pillar State pension will be seriously inadequate in a few years’ time.

It is already so for existing pensioners, particularly those in receipt of the minimum pension.

What holders of political office seem to overlook are the contradictions highlighted by the introduction of third pillar pensions. The first is that only those in receipt of higher incomes can possibly afford to contribute to such voluntary schemes.

Citizens on low income would still end up with a State pension, which just about enables them to keep body and soul together. So much for social inclusion.

The second contradiction is that those who receive an occupational pension (service pension) have such pension set against the social security one for which they contributed all their working lives.

In other words they receivea reduced rate of the social security pension.

With one hand the minister is incentivising the better-off among those economically active to eventually supplement their State pension with a private one.

With the other, like allhis predecessors, he is grabbing millions of euros from thousands of pensioners. Current and future pensioners need to be aware of these contradictions.