Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Feely and Mr. Moran of Age Action. I apologise for being late and missing their contribution but I read their statement. As others have done, I commend Age Action on its ongoing representation of, and advocacy for, older people in this country.

A major issue which we all have heard about, and on which I have received representations, is the number of pensioners, particularly women pensioners, who have been significantly adversely affected by the changes introduced to the way the contributions to the contributory pension scheme are calculated combined with the lifetime average method of calculating ultimate entitlement and the failure to backdate the period spent as a homemaker to those who left the workforce before the specified dates by the then Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Joan Burton in 2012. People have been dealt a triple whammy, which has negatively impacted on 36,000 pensions, particularly women.

The issue has been raised with the Minister and he indicated a willingness to look at it, but I have not heard anything since. Has Age Action heard anything further about what the Government proposes to do? Nobody could fail to acknowledge this injustice and how it impacts on gender.

This injustice will get worse if it is not addressed. Has Age Action any estimates or projections on the numbers that will be affected as time goes on? I would have thought that another cohort that will be affected by this measure as time goes on, unless it is changed, is the people who had to emigrate, and we have had successive waves of emigration in recent years.

An issue that I do not think was mentioned, or was referred to briefly is the thresholds for entitlement to a medical card. This was in spite of the significant resistance and struggle of people to protest at the time the automatic entitlement to a medical card of a pensioner was attacked. The then Government rolled back under the impact of the protests by pensioners and in particular the bodies, including Age Action which organised the protests. Is there an ongoing creeping problem of pensioners losing their medical card and then having to apply for a discretionary medical card? That puts people through the hardship of losing the card and having to reapply for a medical card. Will Age Action comment on that?

Another issue which I have been chatting to Mr. Moran about is the issue of motor insurance for pensioners. I know that our older population are one of the groups that are being particularly hard hit by the extortionate rises in motor insurance premiums. A number of categories are being hit, but older people are definitely a category that are being discriminated against. Is that something that we can and should raise in the context of requiring some sort of action in the budget that would begin to address the unfairness of motor insurance premiums?