FF AND FG SHOULD STOP PLAYING GAMES ON PENSION INCREASE – HUMPHREYS

Labour Senator Kevin Humphreys has slammed Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil over continued speculation of a possible delay to the old age pension in next week’s Budget.

“Reports that an increase of €5 would be delayed until July would mean a real increase of only €2.50 a week in 2017,” said Senator Humphreys.

“Any move to bring the increase back to March or April would be a bad April Fools joke on pensioners as that would mean an increase of just €3.75 a week in 2017.

Last year Fianna Fáil labelled the €3 increase as an insult, so they should clarify whether they are willing to support FG this year by delaying a real increase for pensioners.

This is meant to be the Budget for 2017, not part of 2017.

On Thursday, the Labour Party launched our fully costed Alternative Budget, which provided a pension increase for each week of 2017 of €5 a week.

We also committed to index linking all other weekly social welfare payments to ensure inflation did not erode the real value of these payments.”