47 PER CENT of adults in Ireland believe that they’ll be heavily reliant on state pensions, a nationwide survey has shown.
The Irish Association of Pension Funds (IAPF), which commissioned the survey, also found that nearly one third more females than males hold this view, at 53 per cent versus 40 per cent.
At 27 per cent, just under one in three adults believe that their private pension will form their main income once retired.
Lower again are those who believe that personal savings will form the basis of their retirement income, at only 15 per cent.
Speaking of the findings, the CEO of the IAPF, Jerry Moriarty, believes that these figures are reflective of Ireland’s “notoriously poor” pension participation, which he says were also low “at the height of the good times”.
He also believes that today’s results show that less people are actively involved in setting up their own pension:
When we consider that a high percentage of these people are in the public sector, where pensions come as part of the employment package, then we see that those actively involved in setting up their own pension and saving for their retirement is relatively low.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, Moriarty believes that while people are “struggling to deal with short-term issues,” they still need to consider the fact that they are now living a lot longer than before, and “don’t want to live out their retirement in poverty.”
Saying that “the sooner you start, the quicker it accumulates,” Moriarty believes that younger people are less inclined to think about pensions:
Results have shown that where people believe their income will come from in retirement is largely dependent on the current age of the individual – the older people get the more they believe they will have to rely on the State pension as their primary source of income.
In fact, the number of respondents that believe they will be able to live independent of the State pension drops from 80 per cent to 50 per cent by the time they have started a family, as the reality of the cost of funding children for their first quarter century hits home.
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