John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The witnesses are very welcome to Ireland. I hope they are finding their trip enjoyable and informative. I hope their engagement with the committee this morning can be of some use. Many areas have been touched on and time will be precious here. I am interested in a couple of areas, including the issue of pensions, which has been touched on. It has been dealt with fairly comprehensively by the previous speakers. Many changes have been made to the pension system in Ireland in recent years, including the pensionable age. I am interested to hear what the situation is in Romania. The pension age moved from 65 to 66 in Ireland. In 2021 it will move to 67 and up to 68 in 2028. In Romania, I believe the retirement ages are different for men and women. I believe it is 63 for women and 65 for men. I would like some feedback on how the system in Romania works and whether there are any planned changes to increase the pension age.

In Ireland in 2012, serious changes were made to the contributory pension in terms of contribution, and this ties in with gender-proofing because the changes that were made in 2012 were not gender-proofed and had a direct impact on women in particular. Subsequent to the changes, almost 70% of women are on lower contributory pensions. The changes did not take into account the time that women take out of work to raise families or to look after loved ones. There is much focus on this now, and the Government has said it is moving to a new total contribution system, but this will not come into place until 2020 or 2021. There are a lot of pressures and focus on this.

My colleague touched on the unemployment rate in Romania. To come at it from a slightly different angle, youth unemployment in Ireland is double the national figure of 6% or 6.5%. Youth unemployment is probably 12% or 13%. Are there similarities in Romania in terms of youth unemployment? We have specific job activation schemes in Ireland targeting the long-term unemployed. I have difficulties with lot of them but there are some positive schemes. Are there specific job activation schemes in Romania? How do they work? Are they useful?

I did a little bit of research and found an interesting point.

Although I am not certain whether this is the case, my understanding is that in Romania, a bereavement grant is available to everybody when a family member passes away. A bereavement grant was available in Ireland some years ago but it has been abolished. Perhaps the witnesses would comment on those issues.