The letter from Josephine Agius on civil service pensions (The Sunday Times, October 12) is full of inaccuracies.

Those of us who joined the civil service up to 1979 were engaged on the pensionable establishment, and consequently our pension is a vested right and not "through no extra merit on their part".

What is more, we were not given a golden handshake but had the option to 'sell back' part of our pension. Besides, we are not receiving a higher pension but, in all, a two-thirds pension. What happened in 1979 was that, from then on, civil, servants were no longer engaged on the pensionable establishment and were only entitled to the current two-thirds pension under the National Insurance Act.

Is Ms Agius aware that, while she is entitled to a full two-thirds pension, others before her, although they also had paid the National Insurance contribution in full since its inception, only receive a fraction of what is due to us and for which we have paid through our noses?

Your correspondent is getting her dues for which she has contributed.

We are only getting what is our vested right and we are being robbed by the state of something we, like her, paid for.

Had she, for the sake of argument, been employed by a private firm, and her work contract stipulated that she would be entitled to a pension, would it be right for the state to reduce her State pension? Of course not: she paid for it.

So did we. We are being penalised because we happened to be employed by the State. Yes, as she says, there is an anomaly.