Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Workers are entitled to their wages by law. Deputy Healy may not have noticed that we went through the worst economic crisis in our history. I asked workers to make a contribution. They made that contribution. I asked pensioners to make a contribution as well. I met them. Obviously, no one wants to forego money. We should remember that many pensioners retired on a pension without any pay cut. Many workers have had up to three pay cuts in the course of this crisis. This legislation is restoring income to any pensioner who was on a pension below €34,000 per year. Not too many people in the country are on pensions of that nature. There are decent pensions in the public sector. Anyway, it would have meant those affected retired on an income of €68,000. Those people will have full restoration following the enactment of this Bill. There will be a longer lead-in to those on pensions greater than €34,000.

They will make an incrementally smaller contribution, less than 2% if one is on €35,000 going up to 10.5% if one is on €100,000. Deputy Healy is arguing there should be no cut at all in pensions. I daresay that if there were a debate about politicians’ pensions, he would have something different to say.

The bottom line is I agree with the thrust of what Deputy Healy said about pensions being a preserved property right. That has been determined by the courts. That is why we have taken very careful advices from the Attorney General, of which some have already been tested in the courts. The criteria required, as I have put on the record before, are that to sustain pension contribution, there needs to be an emergency which needs to be certified. The contribution must be one towards addressing that emergency. It needs to be proportionate in terms of the person’s income and it needs to be non-discriminatory. In other words, one cannot say that category of people should be deprived of a pension and that category should not. It has to have general application.

I believe those criteria are met with this. I have listened carefully to the pension representatives and the well-made points by Deputy Sean Fleming about accelerating this process. I agree with that. This was negotiated during the course of 2015 and we will start the restoration in January. If I am in a position, I would like to accelerate that. Please God, the financial circumstances of the State will be such that we can accelerate the restoration, for pensioners in particular, earlier than is set out in this legislation.