The future is not good for pensions and the further away you are from retirement the bleaker is the prospect that you will get anything like you have paid in. A number of factors have come into play to cause major trouble and nearly all of these affect the underlying basic fundamentals required for a pension system to work and along with the continual counter coup to remove the social gains of the past century by the financial elite, the prospects remain grim.

Related External Links: The Global Demise of Pension Plans | Dutch Defined Benefit Pension Plans, Second Largest in Europe, Face Forced Cuts | Feb 2011 Pensions, Treasuries, Fannie and Freddie: Ponzi's one and all | Why And How The Young Are Screwed | What Ben Bernanke Is Really Saying | Your Pension Is Under Attack From All Sides. Here's 10 | Promises, Promises ... Detroit, Pensions, Bondholders And Super-Priority Derivatives | Derivatives, The Gift That Keeps On Taking | Irish pension age to increase to 75 | "It’s a pensions time bomb" - 1 in 5 people stop contributing to their pension | Pension crisis - Inaction is inexplicable | The Pension Time Bomb | Pensions crisis looms as funds lose €18bn in value (Irish Independent) -Nov 2011 | Crises in the banking sector and attempts to refinance
Definitions: Annuity | Gilts

A worrying undermining of our democracy??

The coming referendum on the abolishment of Seanad Éireann would, if passed, remove the existing constitutional right of the President to refer proposed Bills to the people for a referendum. It would pass the initial responsibility of passing Bills into law onto the Dáil alone - a dangerous development, particularly where any ruling party might hold an overall majority.

A vote to abolish the Seanad would in fact pass most law making decisions that impact upon the people to the Dáil alone, passing such responsibility to a single parliamentary body, thus removing existing safeguards meant to protect against the introduction of unconstitutional or politically or otherwise motivationally biased law.

Abolition of the Seanad would mean that a single body, the Dáil, will be responsible for passing any new laws through parliament, which must then be signed into law by the President.

However, the existing constitutional right of the President to refer any Bill to the people for referendum will be removed from the Constitution.

Related Links:
How much would we save by abolishing the Seanad?
Very cynical misleading FG posters?
A History of Iniquity, II: How Irish Governments behaved unconstitutionally, serving the EU agenda | Memo On The Unconstitutional Use Of Public Money By Irish Governments In Constitutional Referendums | Article 136 TFEU amendment, the ESM and the Fiscal Compact Treaty | The Irish Veto: Why a referendum on one treaty, and not on the other? | Referenda: A Strategy for Success? | NUI Seanad Candidates' Include Secret FFers, FGers, et al | Ronan Mullen: Independent Senator. Liberal? | Ireland in Crisis: Challenging the Consensus |

It seems like everytime I view the Fas website more and more real jobs are dissapearing from it and being replaced with free labour internships. When I search for specific sectors now all I seem to find are internships. This scheme is absolutely sickening me as it has potentially destroyed several thousand entry level jobs. I can't believe that Joan Burton and the labour party have completely ruined the youth labour market with a scheme which is:

-replacing real paid jobs with "internships"
-exploiting the jobless
-wasting tax-payer money to provide companies with free labour
-putting underqualified/inexperienced/unvetted people in jobs with far too much responsibility(working with kids etc...)
-distorting our unemployment figures
-putting existing paid jobs at risk
-being used to makeup for a shortfall of skills in the public service due to the recruitment embargo

Related Links: www.ScamBridge.ie | ScamBridge: How the Scam Works | RBB of People Before Profit TD, challenges Minister Burton on outrageous abuse of JobBridge Scheme by private waste company with state contracts
Indy Links: Job bridge converting paid work into unpaid work,and the massaging of dole figures... | Job bridge or exploitation scheme

Drumm: Wanted by the people for High Treason

The astonishing tapes show senior manager John Bowe, who had been involved in negotiations with the Central Bank, laughing and joking as he tells another senior manager, Peter Fitzgerald, how Anglo was luring the State into giving it billions of euro. Mr Fitzgerald had not been involved in the negotiations with the Central Bank and has confirmed he was unaware of any strategy or intention to mislead the authorities. Mr Bowe, in a statement last night, categorically denied that he had misled the Central Bank.

The audio recordings are from the bank's own internal telephone system and date from the heart of the financial crisis that brought the State to its knees in Sept 08.

Anglo itself was within days of complete meltdown – and in the years ahead would eat up €30bn of taxpayer money. Mr Bowe speaks about how the State had been asked for €7bn to bail out Anglo – but Anglo's negotiators knew all along this was not enough to save the bank.

Related Links: Police Draw Batons on Bank Bailout protestors | Ireland and the shadow Banking System - A Talk by Dr. Conor McCabe| The Recession, Bank Bailout or our Deficit? | Audio from Conor McCabe on Banker and Rancher Interests in the Modern Irish Economy | Anglo Irish Bank Protesters to Plead Not Guilty -Here we have a case where the govt tries to convict people protesting against the bankers but not the actual bankers themselves. | Banner Protest outside Anglo Irish Bank | Eirigí Protest at Anglo Irish Bank - 13 Photos Essay | Why the Fianna Fail Party wants to avoid bank nationalisation. | Workers Party Press Release Dec 2008 on Anglo Irish Bank | Initial Thoughts on the Govt's Guarantee to Irish Banks and Its Wider Implications | Communist Party Demand the sacking of all CEO's of Irish banks

Deja Vu?

The central bank is planning changes to the Code of Protection on mortgage arrears, these changes will mean it will be easier for people to be counted as non co-operating and thus make repossession easier, please send the submission below to code@centralbank.ie or make your own submission and send before April 10th to ensure your opposition to this is taken into consideration, with 95,000 people in arrears because of this banking led recession, the people who are bailing out the banks need fairness, there is nothing fair in all powers of discretion, supervision and appeals being with the banks who will not consider the good of the person or common good of the country.

Related Links: Yet Another Government Betrayal | Ireland’s Home Mortgage Crisis: No Debt Relief. | Property Tax and Insolvency - A Human Story | Cease Evictions Ireland | Failure to do deal on legacy bank debt will cost every citizen €13,553 each | Bluebell Community Prevent Eviction | Mortgage Debt Solution | Gunman Willie O Dea keeps quiet about bank robberies