Retired ESB staff to protest over pension freeze
Former ESB workers are to hold a protest outside the Dáil later calling for the removal of a 10-year-old freeze on pension increases.
The ESB Retired Staff Association, which represents 9,000 former workers, wants a return to the system which saw any increase given to staff also passed on to them.
It is also calling on the Government to consider changes to industrial relations laws, allowing former workers the right to access systems such as the Workplace Relations Commission.
Tony Collins, chairman of the group, said retired staff are angry over the pension freeze, and they want it removed:
Mr Collins said: "Pre-2010, the situation was that the company would actually approve a pension increase, the ESB themselves, but that was actually all knocked on the head by an agreement that was concluded between the company and the trade unions.
"But the agreement did not include pensioners, but esentially this agreement has been imposed on pensioners."
