Chairman of the NI Conservatives, Irwin Armstrong, has highlighted the ‘ticking time bomb’ which local government pensions represent across Northern Ireland.
“The latest figures show that, in 2010 / 2011, there was a council pension deficit of more than £218.4 million across Northern Ireland. That means that, currently, everyone living here must find over £100 each if generous pension schemes for council workers are to be funded.”
“A solution to this problem is desperately needed and that’s why the government at Westminster has been negotiating with the unions in order to change expensive and inflexible local government pensions. The alternative is that hard pressed taxpayers will have to pay much more in order to subsidise final salary pension schemes which are often much far more generous than their own.”
“In Northern Ireland the environment minister, Alex Attwood, is responsible for administering the Local Government Pension Scheme. So far he has said that local government workers will be exempt from changes which are taking place to other public sector pensions.”
“It’s clear that the situation must change urgently, before everyone in Northern Ireland finds themselves seriously out of pocket, thanks to the council pension time-bomb.”