The public discourse is increasingly framing pensioners' issues in terms of inter-generational conflict.

There was a recent example of this happening when Prime Minister David Cameron announced that his government would be retaining the triple-lock approach to pension rises beyond the next general election.

The triple lock ensures that pensions will increase by the level of inflation, wage rises or 2.5 per cent - whichever is the greater.

The immediate media response was to contrast this approach with that of the freeze that has been imposed on benefits for younger people.

So there was a visible effort to set one generation against another.

This dangerous argument has been fostered in the media for some time now, namely that younger people are having a tough time because the elderly are getting all the benefits and have lived in a profligate way in the past.

It is an insidious development that follows the attempts to set worker against worker and low-paid worker against benefit recipient - the idea of the deserving and undeserving poor, the striver and skiver. It is a very reductionist argument.

The National Pensioners Convention makes the point that pensioners should not be seen as some sort of drain on the country.

"Whilst the overall cost to the Exchequer (providing pensions, age-related welfare payments and health services) was found to be £136.2 billion, the revenues from older people (financial or otherwise) added up to £175.8bn," said a spokesperson for the NPC.

"The overall net contribution by older people to the economy was therefore almost £40bn a year."

In addition, between £3.7bn and £5.5bn of means-tested benefits that should rightfully go to older people in Britain went unclaimed in 2009-10.

The reality is that pensions and benefits can be afforded for old and young alike.

At present, the National Insurance Fund, which pays for the state pensions, is actually £30bn in surplus, so there is no shortage of funding.

The pot may need to be made bigger in the future, but why not look to increase income by collecting more tax from the richest in society as well as claiming the tax from the large corporate tax-dodgers?

Let's stop wasting so much money on conflicts in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq, or on weapons of mass destruction like the Trident nuclear system. Then there would be a lot more funding available.

There is also a lot said about rich pensioners, referring to the likes of Alan Sugar as a reason for doing away with universal benefits like the winter fuel allowance and free bus pass.

Yet the reality is that, out of 11 million pensioners, just 0.1 per cent are millionaires.

Some 1.8 million (16 per cent) live in poverty, while 1.2 million live on the edge of poverty, according to AgeUK.

Let's not fall for divide-and-rule arguments. Pensions that enable everyone when they reach retirement age to live above the poverty line are easily affordable as well as being for the common good of all - young and old alike.

For more of Paul Donovan's writing visit www.paulfdonovan.blogspot.com