Winter Fuel Payments for pensioners on 52k per year, Is Our welfare system out of touch?

Pensioners being treated as an homogeneous "poor" group is a failing. As is the prevailing narrative that all of these people "worked hard" and "built this country". Some certainly did, but plenty didn't!

De most vulnerable. It was purely a political move to shore up pensioner votes.

The young couple have more options to improve their lot. Most families have two people working. Your contrived example has one minimum wage worker supporting a spouse and two kids. In what world would someone embark on that as a reasonable and viable life path? Not to mention that they somehow have a mortgage to pay for.

Plus, pensioners will have plenty of health related expenses that most 30 year olds won't have. Of all the criticisms I might have about wealth imbalance between older and younger generations, I wouldn't be moaning about the pension FFS.

Not at all, I worked before minimum wage was a thing Ir £ 2.30 an hour so I know plenty about working hard for small return.

However Pensioners today who worked their way through the harshest of years in Ireland in the 70's and 80's to earn a nice pension entitlement did certainly work to do so, to begrudge them that is a typical Irish blame everyone else mindset.

If you read the post that I quoted you will see that it alludes to many pensioners not working, they would not be on € 52k

All this while Anto who got a dole application form for his 18th birthday, is getting a fuel allowance to keep his council house that he pays 30 quid a week warm for the winter, while those working who will struggle for the winter keep the tax money coming in for him.

Not when they are comfortable enough so that only one of them needs to work. The pensioners don't have that option.

The couple are comfortable enough to make the conscious choice that only one of them needs to work. Obviously everyone's personal circumstances are different, but fair play to them for organising things so they have the luxury to make that choice

Pensioners are not the problem here so i don't know why you are trying to connect them to the lack of support for working low income families. Its typical divide tactics to pitch one group against another, diverting it away from the real source of the issue. Government support for low paid working.

You are all over the place. You claim in one post that you are just concerned with pensioners getting something that you think they shouldn't, but then you go on about some hypothetical young couple. Which makes it seem like you are actually more concerned with people not getting it than those that do.

Your argument on the pensioners should stand on its own merits rather than "whataboutery".

I reckon that there are plenty more expenses to having poor health than paying a GP.

No, you are simply agitating for 30 year olds who choose not to work to be given even more. 99% of them could not be classed as in any way vulnerable to having a house that it not heated to sauna temperatures.

You are trying to put a veneer of respectibility on that position by saying "hey, look over there. Look at those greedy pensioners. Whaddabout those".

There are two separate issues and you are deliberately conflating them.

So for the few pensioners who are reasonably well off what do you suggest? How much would means testing them cost in terms of money and personal dignity? 52k a year for two old folks renting in Dublin is a lot less than 52k for 2 old folks in Carlow living in their own paid for home.

I think pensioners should be treated equally and those who squirrelled away money so they would have a more comfortable retirement should not be punished for it further.

I also think their a far too many variables to make blanket calls on who should get it and who should not. This angst at this niche situation would much better directed at government, ombudsmen, and energy companies who are clearly fleecing us all at present. IE electricity, it goes up, then so do the bills, it comes down "We are locked into contracts and cant bring it down till X date" - load of bs.

Well they would clearly fail the means test wouldn't they?

What sort of income limit would you propose for the fuel allowance?

How much would the additional proposed measure cost the exchequer on an annual basis?

How much would not paying the fuel allowance to pensioners in receipt of pensions in excess of € 52k that do not fail the means test will save on an annual basis?

Where will the additional funding come from to cover your proposed rise in the fuel allowance qualifying threshold?

Do you propose cuts in other welfare rates, additional taxation, cuts in public services?

We are a one income family

My wife could not claim any welfare payments while she stayed at home for the past few years being a mother.

Despite having worked full time for most of the previous 10 years.

We're not entitled to anything really

The idea that wealthy pensioners don't exist is nonsense. But there is no political will to take on this group.

I know many wealthy pensioners who can't spend their income.

I also know some in the above cohort whose kids are dependent on parental dig outs. And these are adult kids, with young children of their own.

And when they get that better job they will be replaced by another person working for minimum wage.