Council pensions ‘a ticking time bomb’

For 2010/2011 there was a council pension deficit of more than £218.4m across Northern Ireland and for Lisburn Council that figure stands at over £9.3m. That means that, currently, everyone living in Lisburn must find £80 each if generous pension schemes for council workers are to be funded.

A solution is desperately needed and that’s why the government at Westminster is negotiating with the unions 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 before everyone in Northern Ireland finds themselves seriously out of pocket, thanks to the council pension time-bomb.

Neil McNickle

Lagan Valley Conservatives