By Dave Collins – the Irish Channel
A Social Contract Betrayed
For much of the last century, the Irish State held out one simple promise: work hard, pay your taxes, and the Republic will ensure you are not left destitute in old age. That was the spirit behind Article 45 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, which pledged to protect “the economic interests of the aged.” It was more than words it was a foundation stone of public trust, a belief that loyalty to country would be rewarded with dignity.
But as 2025 dawns, that promise lies in tatters. With the arrival of auto-enrolment pensions and the “My Future Fund,” the State has quietly stepped back from its duty. What is replacing it is a slick system that shifts risk from government to citizens, cloaked in the language of modernisation, “choice,” and “financial empowerment.”
Behind the glossy brochures, however, lies a simple truth: the new pension system is a retreat, not a reform. It is the quiet death of “cradle to grave” care and with it, the slow impoverishment of Ireland’s next four generations.
The False Shine of Reform
The 2024 Finance Bill and the rollout of the long-delayed “My Future Fund” in 2025 were sold with fanfare. Government speeches hailed a “new era of retirement security.” The language was carefully chosen, reassuring, almost paternal. But look at the fine print, and the glow fades quickly.
Employer contributions capped: PRSAs (Personal Retirement Savings Accounts) now face strict limits. Anything above 100% of salary gets taxed, punishing both employers who want to support workers and employees hoping to build security.
Token State Pension increases: Annual hikes of €12 barely enough for a bag of groceries are presented as progress while inflation devours living standards.
Mandatory auto-enrolment: Any worker earning over €20,000 is forced into the new scheme. On the surface, this seems positive. But the returns are tied not to the State, but to the roulette wheel of global markets.
Minimal State stake: The State’s own contribution? Just 1%. A contribution so tiny it is almost an insult, yet enough to classify the scheme as a “pension” under law and potentially block participants from qualifying for the traditional State Pension later in life.
The message, stripped of its PR gloss, is clear: You are on your own.
Gambling with Futures
For decades, Irish workers believed they were investing in security. In truth, they were being led into a casino.
Consider the record:
In 2008, Irish pension funds lost over a third of their value in a single year. Workers who had paid in loyally for decades watched their pots shrink overnight.
In 2022, another €15 billion vanished from pension funds, a stark reminder that global volatility is not an exception it is the rule.
Many nearing retirement were forced back into the workforce. Some never retired at all.
One retired teacher told The Irish Times:
“I paid into AVCs for 25 years. The money vanished just before I turned 66. Now I’m stacking boxes in a warehouse.”
A civil servant, equally blindsided, put it even more bluntly:
“We weren’t investing. We were gambling. But we didn’t know the casino was rigged.”
The new scheme locks the next four generations into the same trap forced contributions tied to unstable markets. And this time, the State has washed its hands of responsibility.
Four Generations of Loss
The impact of these reforms will not be confined to today’s young workers. They set in motion a chain reaction that will erode family stability, home ownership, and community wealth for decades to come.
Today’s Young Workers
They will contribute into a pension system designed to fail them. Their retirement savings will rise and fall with Wall Street and Frankfurt, not with Irish society’s needs. Many will never reach the security their parents enjoyed.
Their Children
When those workers retire in poverty, their children will shoulder the cost helping parents pay bills, covering nursing home fees, delaying their own plans for education or housing. Intergenerational support, once about inheritance, will become about survival.
Their Grandchildren
Home ownership, already slipping from reach, will vanish altogether. Families will sell property not to pass down wealth, but to fund the bare necessities of retirement. The tradition of leaving something behind will be replaced by debt and dispossession.
Their Great-Grandchildren
A culture of permanent precarity will be cemented. With pensions tethered to markets and the State stepping further away, the fourth generation will grow up with no expectation of retirement at all. The idea of “finishing work at 65” will feel like a fairytale.
This is not alarmism it is simple cause and effect. A pension system that abandons State responsibility creates generational poverty, one family at a time.
The Silent Abdication
Article 45 of the Constitution looks noble on paper:
“The State pledges itself to safeguard with especial care the economic interests of the aged.”
But here’s the trick it is not legally enforceable. It is aspirational. And in 2025, aspiration means nothing when the reality is abandonment.
By design, the reforms sidestep accountability. If your pension pot crashes, it is not the government’s problem. If you cannot retire, it is your personal misfortune. The State has covered itself with the thinnest of fig leaves a 1% contribution and declared its duty done.
This is not reform. It is abdication.
The Real Cost: Human Dignity
Policy papers talk of percentages, funds, and tax codes. But beneath those numbers are people citizens who built the Republic with their labour.
The factory worker who lifted crates for 40 years, now expected to gamble his future on stock markets he does not understand.
The nurse who worked double shifts through a pandemic, only to learn her pension depends on the next financial bubble.
The bus driver, the civil servant, the soldier, the teacher—all told that the safety net they trusted is no longer guaranteed.
And the insult cuts deeper: it is framed as empowerment.
“You’re investing in your future,” we are told. In truth, we are being forced to shoulder risks that once belonged to the State.
The Hard Questions
Local councils and national representatives should be pressed on these realities. Questions must be asked not just about today, but about the decades to come:
How does the State justify a 1% contribution and still claim it is “safeguarding” the aged as promised in Article 45?
Is the government aware that by classifying its token 1% contribution as a pension, many workers may be blocked from receiving the traditional State Pension later in life?
Has any assessment been made of the long-term social cost children forced to subsidise parents, families selling homes, communities stripped of inherited stability?
What happens when the next crash wipes out billions in pension pots? Will the State still wash its hands?
How can a generation that cannot retire be expected to make space for younger workers in the labour market?
Conclusion A Future We Applaud
The tragedy is not only in the policy it is in our acceptance of it. We have applauded as government ministers, with polished speeches and ribbon-cutting ceremonies, sold us a future of poverty dressed up as reform.
We were told it was modern, sustainable, inevitable. We nodded. We trusted. And now, four generations stand on the path to precarity.
The Irish Republic once promised dignity from cradle to grave. That promise is dead.
What remains is a warning: the markets will not save us, and the State no longer will. Unless we demand better, our children and grandchildren will inherit not security, but poverty.