Tag Archives: pensions

MOST people’s eyes glaze over if the topic of pensions is raised! Saving for retirement is extremely important. People are living longer and leading more active lives in retirement. As a result, it is more important than ever for you to think about where your income will come from when you retire. Pension saving is one of the few areas where you can still get tax relief. Unfortunately, only about half of the people working in Ireland are members of pension arrangements. Today let’s discuss a defined benefit pension. What is a defined benefit pension scheme? A defined benefit pension, or sometimes know as final salary pension, is a special type of workplace pension. Instead of building up a pension pot over time, it provides you with a guaranteed annual income for life, based on your final or average salary (hence the name). DB pensions are most often provided by the public sector (health, education etc) and government employers. Some private …

PANDEMIC restrictions are putting increased pressure on rural post offices, as the move towards a cashless society accelerates, according the post master for Scariff and Feakle. Brian McMahon said that while rural post offices had been commended as centres of help and support for the community, there was no real recognition from government of the pressures created by Covid-19 restrictions. “The government is striving for a cashless society,” he said. “That has meant more payments to bank accounts, rather than in person at the post office. The reality is that communities need cash and in some cases, we are the major supplier in places where there is no bank or cash point in many areas.” Mr McMahon added that the terms of the new contracts issued to post masters were not as favourable as those issued two years ago. “Under the old contracts, we counted our transactions over a three-year period,” he noted. “Now we are counting them month-by-month. As …

WAGES, salaries, social insurance and pensions cost Roche €27.5 million last year, it emerged this week. According to company accounts filed for the financial year ended December 31, 2015, Roche Ireland Limited spent €20.7m on wages and salaries; €2.2m on social insurance; €3.5m on defined benefit pension service costs and €977,000 on other benefits. The total figure is up from €24.8m a year earlier. It has also emerged that a majority of employees have taken a generous redundancy package of six weeks wages from the company, plus two weeks statutory redundancy, depending on years of service as part of their exit compensation. All of this is capped at a maximum of 2.5 years wages. A small number of employees, believed to be in the region of 10%, have secured jobs in other pharmaceutical companies. SIPTU industrial organiser Paul dePuis believes all the redundancies will be on a voluntary basis. However, if the company does not secure the number of voluntary …

IT has been decided that an expert panel should be established to carry out an urgent investigation of how a final resolution of the industrial relations issues relating to the Irish Airlines Superannuation Scheme (IASS) can be secured. This follows consultation by the secretary general of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Tom O’Mahony, and the secretary general of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, John Murphy, with both the chief executive of Ibec, Danny McCoy, and the general secretary of Congress, David Begg, Ibec and Congress have each nominated an industrial relations expert to lead the investigation, with the support of a financial expert, to comprise the Panel. The Panel members are: Mr Brendan McGinty and Ms Laura Gallagher (KPMG), and Mr Peter McLoone and Mr Eugene McMahon (Mazars). Important areas of disagreement remain between the parties, which have resulted in the current impasse. However, in the case of DAA and Aer Lingus, it is noted that …