We have nothing against Alfred Mifsud’s enthusiasm, in principle, for fiscal incentives to market Pillar 3 (voluntary private) pensions to encourage saving for old age (TMIS, 3 June), but this requires government permission to do so. Successive administrations have continued to outlaw both Pillar 2 and 3 pensions, first enacted in the 1979 pension reform. This has meant that workers with Pillar 2 and/or 3 pensions, employed since 1979, have had these pensions subtracted from their Pillar 1 pension.

In spite of item 244 in GonziPN’s 2008 electoral programme promising resolution of this national scandal, that of subtracting Pillar 2 and/or 3 pensions from the Pillar 1 pension of around 6,000 individuals, this problem is still very much in existence. Permission to market Pillar 3 pensions would require concomitant resolution of this longstanding iniquity against some of our pensioners; otherwise this would create an even greater discriminatory scandal than the present state of affairs, and would really be a big one in the eye for the recent slogan of “solidarity between generations”.

Albert Cilia-Vincenti

President

National Association of Service Pensioners