THE assurances about their pensions given to our senior citizens this week by Treasury Minister Philip Ozouf will have been widely welcomed, and not just by those of a certain age.

Jersey is facing hard choices in taxation and public spending cuts in response to the looming budget deficit, but few would argue against the need to safeguard the wellbeing of Islanders in later life. Generally dependent on some combination of fixed incomes and state benefits, and now faced with the collapse in the value of their savings created by the banking crisis, they have a tough enough time as it is without having to worry that unsympathetic politicians might be after their pensions as well.

As it was, Senator Ozouf was able to reassure the Senior Citizens Association that there were no plans to change social security benefits and pensions and that fears about how far a proposed tightening of qualification for the Christmas bonus might go had been misplaced.

If the central concerns which led to the meeting being called were thus nipped in the bud, it was nevertheless a valuable and important exercise. Due credit must go to Senator Ozouf for stepping into the grey-maned lions’ den to learn at first hand the problems and worries of the older generation.

In finding the right balance of spending cuts, benefits and new taxes to secure the island’s public finances for the future, the Treasury Minister faces an unenviably difficult task. His meeting with the pensioners sent out a strong signal that it is one he is tackling with the human element and the more vulnerable in society to the forefront of his mind.

In respect of the senior citizens, that is very much as it should be. It has been said that a community can be judged by the way it treats its elderly, in this case the men and women on whose efforts and experience Jersey’s post-war success has been based. The pensions in question are theirs by right and not by the grace of whichever politicians happen to be passing through the States at any given time, even difficult times like this.

The influence of the Island’s older and often wiser heads can only increase as the baby boomer generation enters retirement, strong in both numbers and opinions. All credit too, meanwhile, to organiser Daphne Minihane for harnessing Jersey’s growing grey power and turning the Senior Citizens Association into a lobby group which no politician who wishes to stay in office long can afford to ignore.