Small business lobby Isme and Brokers Ireland, which represents financial advisers, have called on the Government to increase financial support for private pensions.

The groups have written to Ministers outlining measures that, it says, would remove “pensions discrimination against the self-employed and private sector workers”.

“The gold-plated pensions available to our politicians and our public servants are simply not affordable for workers in the private sector,” Isme said as they presented what they call a pensions “white paper”, drawn up in association with Brokers Ireland, to Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, and Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Michael McGrath.

It accused the Revenue Commissioners of “trying to devise ways of further reducing the ability of private sector workers to finance a pension they can afford to live on after they retire” even as political and public service pensions are indexed upwards annually with incremental pay as well as regular pay increases.

Isme says the nature of public service pensions means that a private sector worker, who wants to save for a pension as good as a public servant earning the same salary, would have to save at least half of their earnings throughout their working life. It adds that Revenue rules do not allow contributions at that level.

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